Hello, [Not a development topic.. but I need to hit the right audience]
Last year, with our acceptance in GSoC, it came to my attention that we
might possibly benefit from forming an official 501(c)(3) Non Profit
Organization. This has become fresh in my mind again this year due to
GSoC, but also due to the "Bounty" that has appeared regarding the E
File Manager.
Forming an NPO has many benefits I'm told. I don't pretend to fully
understand all of them, but here are the ones that seem most immediately
applicable to E:
1) A third party to manage our "assets":
Money, copyrights, trademarks, etc
2) A way to collect earmarked donations:
I believe we could accept a general donation for E,
or monies for specific tasks (Like EFM work)
3) An entity to absorb IRS tax obligations:
Google pays our organization money for each student
who completes GSoC. The money gets sent to an
individual[1] (for deposit into the E fund, held by
another individual[2]). Individual[1] has tax
obligations.
4) Protection from personal liability:
They say anyone can sue anyone else for anything
these days. Sounds good to be protected from that.
5) Copyright/Trademark enforcement:
If we had a need,
6) Donations to E become tax deductible for he who
donates.
Now, all of the above might sound like simply more work, more
bookkeeping, and unnecessary structural changes to E. However, there
are presently organizations out there that are in fact NPOs, whose
function is to be an umbrella NPO for FOSS projects. One such
organization is the Software Freedom Conservancy.
http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org
They provide services to many FOSS orgs. Some of which are very notable
names:
http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/members/
There is also a sibling organization (Software Freedom Law Center) which
provides legal representation for member projects:
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/
The SFLC works closely with the Free Software Foundation, GNU Compiler
Collection Steering Committee, and many others.
The SFC/SFLC is a well established organization who already has the
structure, personnel, and facilities to handle all of the above. Their
goal is to provide these services with little or no changes to its
member orgs.
So, I'm writing this purely to kick up a discussion. To generate Q&As.
I don't have all the (any?) answers, but I'm willing to do the legwork
to uncover them.
Your thoughts?
--
Regards,
Ravenlock
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