Have the USENIX association lawyers been made aware they are accepting funds in a manner which may expose them to trademark litigation from IBM? Either this trademark IS an issue, and blocks creation of a foundation, and ANYONE that accepts funds for doing work on 'OpenAFS' is potentially liable, or it's not.
Is there a statement to what ends a donation to the Usenix openafs fund would be used for? On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 01:00:51PM -0400, Jeffrey Altman wrote: > On 9/26/2012 12:12 PM, Troy Benjegerdes wrote: > > Has someone formed a legal organization, and filed 501.c3 paperwork, > > or not? What are the charitable goals? If they have, where do I send > > a check for my $50 tax-deductible charitable contribution. > > On the www.openafs.org site there is a "Donate" link which takes you to: > > http://static.usenix.org/about/openafs/ > > which describes how a 501c3 tax deductible donation can be made to the > Usenix OpenAFS Fund. The page reads: > > [begin quote] > USENIX is accepting donations on behalf of The OpenAFS Project through > the OpenAFS Fund. Donations can be made by sending a check, drawn on a > U.S. bank, made out to the USENIX Association, to: > > OpenAFS Fund > USENIX Association > 2560 Ninth St., Suite 215 > Berkeley, CA 94710 > > Your contribution may be tax-deductible as allowed by law under IRS Code > Section 501(c)(3). Check with your tax advisor to determine whether your > contribution is fully or partially tax-deductible. > [end quote] > > OpenAFS itself does not exist as a legal corporate entity. The OpenAFS > Elders represent the community as an unincorporated association. There > are significant legal and financial hurdles that must be addressed > before an OpenAFS Foundation can be formed. Most open source projects > do not have their own legal entity but work under an umbrella > organization. OpenAFS is complicated because the IBM Public License > 1.0 is unique and is in conflict with the requirements of many of the > umbrella orgs. In addition, OpenAFS ships kernel drivers which > increasingly require digital signatures and umbrella orgs are loath to > be responsible for signing. In addition, the licensing of the source > code itself is not as clean as one would like. Not to mention the > trademark and protocol compatibility issues that IBM has never fully > resolved. > > Finally, running an organization requires money. You need to pay for at > least a part time executive director, accountants, lawyers and possibly > insurance. Then there really should be funding for the gatekeepers, the > system administration and web site management. All things which up to > this point have been donated in kind but which have substantial costs. > A bare bones Foundation that does not but maintain the status quo will > cost a minimum of six figures and that does not begin to address the > development of new features or functionality. > > Finally, any organization requires a business plan. When I wrote the > plan for the MIT Kerberos Consortium the plan outlined seven years of > budgets and goals along with fund raising targets, how contributors > would benefit, and what the minimum financial commitments were for > formation, etc. > > In 2008, the OpenAFS Elders and the community were working on a plan. > The announcement of the plan was made on 6 May 2008. > > http://lists.openafs.org/pipermail/openafs-announce/2008/000242.html > > A follow up providing details was made on 24 Sept 2008: > > http://lists.openafs.org/pipermail/openafs-announce/2008/000259.html > > The details are available at http://www.openafs.org/foundation. > > After a year of work it was concluded that for a variety of reasons the > plan to incorporate could not move forward. The reasoning was detailed > in an e-mail sent on 18 Aug 2009: > > http://lists.openafs.org/pipermail/openafs-announce/2009/000303.html > > All of this information is publicly available. The OpenAFS Elders have > continued to work with IBM on the trademark and other legal issues > without coming to a resolution sufficient to meet our needs. Umbrella > organizations such as the Software Freedom Conservancy have continued to > discuss options with us but the legal issues are a significant challenge. > > The OpenAFS Elders continue to evaluate options for moving forward. In > the meantime, if you would like to donate money, you can do so via the > Usenix Fund. If you would like to donate code, you can do so via > gerrit.openafs.org. > > Jeffrey Altman > > _______________________________________________ OpenAFS-info mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openafs.org/mailman/listinfo/openafs-info
