Those behind the open source Internet video player Miro have launched a new adoption system! No, you won't be adopting babies or kittens, or even polar bears in Antarctica—instead, users can "adopt" a line of source code from Miro for $4 in order to help support the continued development of the software.

Miro (originally Democracy Player) was relaunched by the Participatory Culture Foundation (PCF) in 2007. PCF is a nonprofit organization that functions via donations in order to pay programmers to develop the software for Mac, Windows, Ubuntu, and other Linux distros. PCF recently released Miro 2.0 with some UI improvements, support for more Web-based video sources, and direct download improvements.

Because Miro is funded solely by donations, however, the recent economic slowdown has directly affected its progress. "We're a small nonprofit in a sea of big budget, for-profit competitors, and the recent stock market crash has severely hurt the foundations that fund the bulk of our work," reads the letter on Miro's code adoption page. "We aren't here to make money, we're here for a mission: to distribute wonderful video around the world in a system that's more open and decentralized than ever before. To do that, we need you to help us care for a little tiny piece of Miro."

Here's where the adoption program goes far beyond the efforts of other open source projects. Those who "adopt" one of Miro's thousands of lines of code will be able to see its unique name and face—yes, just like when you "adopt" a wild animal or impoverished child on the other side of the world—and show it to the world via blog widget. Additionally, adoptive parents will get their names published inside the source code itself and receive a credit in the about box of every copy of Miro. Here's mine:

Apparently, you can watch your adoptee "grow up" as that particular code continues along its development path. You have to admit, too, that the whole shebang is kind of cute.