Re: [gentoo-project] Questions for Council candidates: Future of the Foundation

[Alec Warner]

On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 2:11 PM Aaron Bauman <bman@g.o> wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 12:30:04PM -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> > On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 8:20 PM Aaron Bauman <bman@g.o> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > On July 4, 2020 8:57:33 PM EDT, Alec Warner <antarus@g.o>
> wrote:
> > > >On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 2:44 PM Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 12:33 PM Andrew Savchenko <
> bircoph@g.o>
> > > >> wrote:
> > > >> >
> > > >> > This is one more aspect to this: some companies double donations
> > > >> > for 501c3 organizations. A friend of mine works in a large
> > > >> > corporation with HQ is the US and told me that his employer
> doubles
> > > >> > any donations made to 501c3, so he made no donation for Gentoo,
> > > >> > because that will mean loosing money for community which otherwise
> > > >> > can be doubled. So it is likely that 501c3 will increase incoming
> > > >> > donations.
> > > >>
> > > >> That is a really good point and I'll expand on this.
> > > >>
> > > >> Some organizations will only donate money to 501c3 organizations.
> > > >> Basically they're letting the IRS do the due diligence around
> whether
> > > >> the organization is actually charitable.  They can potentially also
> > > >> receive tax benefits this way.
> > > >>
> > > >> If you want to receive grants/donations from other 501c3
> > > >organizations
> > > >> you will be far more likely to get them if you are yourself a 501c3
> > > >> organization.  These transactions receive far less scrutiny than
> > > >> transfers from 501c3s to other types of corporations.
> > > >>
> > > >
> >
> >
> https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/106055a4c7b58694172f392e0279ec47
> >
> > -A
>
> Seems folks had ideas, but you (really we/Trustees) did not respond. Of
> course, it also seems many tried to divert the idea of spending any
> money without consulting Robin as the lead for finanances.
>

Yeah I think continuing the finances will help.


>
> For the record, Robin calcualted (IMHO, very well) what we could spend
> and what we couldn't. So, for those following this mail, please know
> that due diligence is completed before any funds are appropriated. Then
> and now.
>

I am also sad that we basically received no net new funding requests to the
Foundation. Everyone has ideas on how to spend money but no one is
executing anything. I think dillfridge was correct on that thread when he
said that the problem isn't necessarily money, but instead we lack the
people to execute on these ideas. We did the Nitrokey thing because people
did care and pushed that idea forward; getting financial approval for it
was straightforward

I see two main problems:
1) The main problem with efforts appears not to be a lack of money and
instead is a lack of leadership (e.g. someone pushing a project through.)
2) The foundation has been reticent to hire people to do this work for two
reasons.
    a) The Foundation has often not wanted employees, or contractors; this
is mostly due to a lack of D&O insurance.
    b) The Community has not been particularly receptive to paid vs unpaid
developers; we would need some method to manage this.

-A


> --
> Cheers,
> Aaron
>