On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 10:19 AM, john whelan <jwhelan0...@gmail.com> wrote: > It could look after things such as the Openstreetmap.ca domain, forward a > few dollars into europe keep the servers going, possibly raise a few dollars > to purchase a couple of GPS devices for street mapping parties, even send a > few to Africa etc to help Openstreetmap over there. The Charitable status > would mean tax deductions on the donations.
Perhaps. Or perhaps not. I'm indifferent to local chapters and national OSM associations. It's not that I think there will never be a time when a Canadian OSM-related official organization / non-profit / charity will be required. I just don't see why it is required now. What sort of work would be involved to incorporate and establish charitable status? Who would do that? For what salary? The .ca address may be gone never to return. We don't know. Best to accept that it is gone. Moaning about it will only increase the price should it be available for sale at some point in the future. The OSMF already maintains several osm related domains for .countries (iirc). How is this better or worse at the .ca level? Also iirc, .ca does have a Canadian content requirement, that may preclude having OSMF maintain .ca If fund-raising is the goal, how much is expected to be raised? How does the Canadian charity status (and tax receipt) affect this amount? How does the cost of running a Canadian charity affect that, and would greater net contribution come from just sending the money to OSMF. If raising money for GPS receivers is the goal, are you aware of the GPStoGo[1] program of the OSMF? We can contribute to that. There is also a GPS for Loan program[2] on the wiki and some OSMers have extra units that they loan informally. I would prefer to see more people assisting in the OSMF, and addressing issues for all mappers around the globe. I believe that the OSMF can be more effective if additional people commit to helping the OSMF. I don't believe that anything at OSMF is currently limited by too many people. And I don't believe that OSMF-like-organizations require a level of indirection at national levels to regain efficiency. People who want to "do something to support OSM" can do things with and for the OSMF, or even as individuals. To help as an individual; talk about OSM, host local face-to-face meetups and demonstrate editors, map a small plaza and print a copy of the map for each store with links to the map and your local meetup. Write an article about something you enjoy regarding OSM. Answer questions for journalists. Give a talk at a conference, or to a local business or community group. [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/GPStogo [2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/GPS_Units_for_Loan _______________________________________________ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
