On Fri, 2003-08-15 at 15:23, Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
> From: "Brett I. Holcomb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Donation disclosure
> 
> 
> > Excellent, Karl.  In fact it's really none of our business what model
> Gentoo
> > chooses.
> >
> 
> Yes it is ... if they are asking for donations.
> 
> Tom Veldhouse
> 
> 
No it isn't, as long as you are free to decline their request for
donations.

The day that donating to gentoo becomes compulsory then you'll have a
moral right to know. The day they offer to sell you a piece of gentoo
(stocks, bonds), then you'll have a legal right to know. Until that
point, you have a choice to donate or not, and gentoo has a choice to
accept or decline any donation you offer, and no other conditions exist
in either direction.

Try asking all those questions at your local store, see how far that
gets you. Try asking your local bar owner how much his salary was last
year. Try asking the guy who fixes cars in a back street workshop, the
pool boy, the street sweeper. Sure, you can ask, if you don't mind being
seen as rude and excessively nosey, but you should consider any reply as
a blessing because you don't have any right to know. Around here you'd
be more likely to get a backhand slap than an answer :) 

If you really want to know, contact Gentoo inc with cash in hand and try
to buy $1M worth of Gentoo. If you have the money and Gentoo inc wants
it, they'll take the time to figure it out and you'll know.

Just for the record, I was the CEO and then CTO of a small-ish
open-source based startup for a while. Most of the time I had only the
broadest picture of our value, where the money was going etc, and any
time I needed anything like a financial statement it cost a significant
amount of money. The procedures required by UK law for any Ltd company
at the end of each year are obscene. If I was donating any money to
Gentoo I'd rather it be spent on pizza and weed for late night debugging
sessions or an overt bribe to get us a 2.4.21 based gentoo-sources than
see it wasted on bean-counting accountancy. Some accounting has to
exist, but you don't need Gentoo to pay thousands of dollars just so you
can send them a couple of hundred.

-- 
Yorkshire Dave
top-posters will be ignored


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