Thanks for your suggestions Ryan. On 18.01.2014 02:59, Ryan Kirk wrote: > > What is the point of a Swiss bank account? Especially with FATCA? > OpenBSD has a nonprofit foundation behind it which looks a lot better > than funneling money through tax havens. > Swiss bank accounts are the most safe worldwide. Some donating people want to stay anonymous so it is neccessary to ofer them such posibility. Further it is rather difficult (in particular for foreign secret service agancies) to monitor payments and/or to block money of nonprofit fundations when the account is just in a neutral country like Switzerland.
> OpenBSD would have no problem receiving donations if it became > something most of its developers and users don't want it to become. > Linux or FreeBSD have shown the way to users and incone via various > models (paid support, enterprise features, long-term releases, > automation tools, trying to be everything to everyone, etc). While it > is admirable that OpenBSD has eschewed corporate sponsorship so that > it has the freedom to be autonomous, the price for that is, of course, > money. > The main disadvantage of the current distribution model of OpenBSD is (from my point of view) the limited availability of the same iso images as in the distributed CD set. Most of other *BSD or Linux distribution offer downloads of current iso images. Image downloads are of course less secure as the "man in the middle" could modify the image and fake the signatures. Installations over the network are also not as secure as installing offline from original CD or DVD image. As brand new hardware doesn't have CD/DVD drive anymore an installation from a USB stick (with ROM memory .. not flash due to security concerns) seems to be required. Financial aspects of the current distribution model are another very important topic. Let say the swiss OpenBSD user pays for the CD set 50 CHF (swiss francs). The price includes 8% VAT (= CHF 3.60) The german OpenBSD user has to pay 19% VAT. If the price would be 40 Euro (EUR) the VAT is EUR 6.39. Myself I prefer to donate than to pay unnecessary VAT or other handling costs. My conclusion and suggestion is to sell the CD media kit for the lowest possible price (production costs plus additional charges like shipment and custom costs, VAT etc) and ask users to donate $ 20 to $ 50 instead. Another possibility is to enable downloads of original iso images for people who donate yearly let say at least $20, 30 or more. My preffered way is to donate once for few years in advance to assure continous development of OpenBSD and cover operating costs of the required server infrastructure. > Instead of concentrating on users, it might be more worthwhile to > focus a campaign on pressuring vendors of enterprise *nix OS's that > bundle OpenSSH without contributing a nickel to the cause. This would > be most effectively done by buyers in large corporate environments, > but this is also the most unlikely group to care. Has any thought been > given to media relations? A story in Wired about the world's most > underappreciated developers of some of the most critical software > could do enormous good. Rumors of an impending implosion could work > wonders on those Fortune 500 enterprise *nix vendors who would much > rather donate a hundred grand or so rather than spend many times that > to develop a critical component in-house. > Big companies will donate regulary as they want continuos support and maintenace for OpenBSD. > I don't always agree with my OpenBSD friends so they are probably > shaking their head at this, but the project needs a strategic > non-technical leader for the foundation who can doggedly pursue these > various avenues towards multiple and diverse revenue streams without > compromising the integrity of the OS. Until then, the leaders are in > de facto agreeance that the existing model is what is best for the > project. That is fine, but with it must come the acceptance that few > outside the security field will have an interest in the OS, and thus > few will have an interest in donating. > I guess that Theo and some core developers are already excellent non-technical leaders. Every of your ideas and help are sure very helpful for them and the OpenBSD community. Kind regards, Mark -- [email protected] http://rsync.it-infrastrukturen.org > On Jan 17, 2014 8:09 PM, "Mark Schneider" <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > I read today that there are some financial troubles > I have few question and ideas how to help out to collect some > money for OpenBSD > 1. Myself I would buy as many as possible CDROM sets of OpenBSD > 5.4 for US $500 to distribute them for as low as possible price > locally > > 2. If there some problems with payments it would be an idea to > open an account in Switzerland > or does OpenBSD already have a bank account in Switzerland ? > > can someone present this idea to Theo ? > > <Obilan> You could just donate > <ironm> Obilan, sure I can donate .. but it is what would spread > OpenBSD and make it more popular > <ironm> and I am myself not able to help with enough money > > <ironm> 2. If there some problems with payments it would be an > idea to open an account in Switzerland > <ironm> or does OpenBSD already have a bank account in Switzerland ? > > <cthuluh> if you want to collecte funds, just do it > <ironm> It is rather difficult to collect funds without original > CD-set > <ironm> cthuluh, the point is that for example in Switzerland it > is difficult to easily buy the OpenBSD 5.4 CD-set > <ironm> and at the moment it costs like 60 CHF > > <ironm> my idea is just to import at once as much as possible to > minimize shipment costs and some custom charges (including 8% VAT) > and distribute it locally for a price below 25 or 30 CHF (swiss > francs) > <ironm> from my point of view a price of 20, 25 maybe 30 Swiss > Francs can be accepted here locally > <ironm> If I had easy possibility to buy openBSD locally I would > buy it probably every time when I would know that all the money > lands an the account of OpenBSD > > <klarrt3> since it's free can't you just burn some CD:s, sell > them, and donate the money back > <ironm> klarrt3, it doesn't make sense in my opinion > <ironm> only originally pressed CD media make sense > <klarrt3> it's a nice thought though, getting money for obsd > > <zenlunatic> who are you going to sell them to? > <ironm> zenlunatic, everywhere .. Universities, IT people in Swiss > banks etc > > <mahomet> i'm throwing some money towards OpenBSD Foundation. I > use FreeBSD myself but it'd be tragic if OpenBSD were to disappear > > I hope that it is the proper mailings list. Thank you in advance > for feedback and new ideas.
