Edit 3: This is not edited but rather a real screenshot from early 2021.
Alexander Tharapos only shows up in 2021. David Choi is also in the $5–24 bracket.
Donations accrue throughout the year. Here’s one snapshot from late March 2021 showing Apple far below where they were at year’s end.
The FreeBSD Foundation’s 20th anniversary was in 2020, hence the logo.
However, this was after mid-January, as we have an archive from then when Apple Inc. wasn’t on the donor list yet.
Apple was in the $1000–$4999 range by year’s end.
This also comports with @RmDebArc_5@piefed.zip’s note about the donation matching program. A small automatic donation like this would make sense.
What’s more likely?
Apple, Inc. noticed and went out of their way to donate – but an amount so inconsequential that it damages their brand image and probably, due to labor overhead, cost them more to donate than the amount actually donated.
You can donate under whatever name you want, and someone just made their name “Apple Inc.” as a joke.
Edit: I checked the donors, and while I couldn’t go back farther than 2024 (even by changing the URL param), none of them were $5–24.
Edit 2: I went back to 2018 via the Wayback Machine and still couldn’t find this. I guess it’s possible it happened before this, but given every single year seems to be in the hundreds to thousands range and given a $25 donation by a company like Apple would be pissing money into the void, this seems dubious.
Edit 3: This is not edited but rather a real screenshot from early 2021.
This also comports with @RmDebArc_5@piefed.zip’s note about the donation matching program. A small automatic donation like this would make sense.
What’s more likely?
Edit: I checked the donors, and while I couldn’t go back farther than 2024 (even by changing the URL param), none of them were $5–24.
Edit 2: I went back to 2018 via the Wayback Machine and still couldn’t find this. I guess it’s possible it happened before this, but given every single year seems to be in the hundreds to thousands range and given a $25 donation by a company like Apple would be pissing money into the void, this seems dubious.