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On Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 5:36 PM Maciej Barć <xgqt@g.o> wrote: |
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> |
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> I've also heard that GF will never touch this because it is against the |
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> foundation's laws, "because Gentoo cannot pay itself"... shrug. |
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No such legal/formal restriction exists (the bylaws even have some |
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provisions for employees (we don't have any)), but there are many |
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reasons that this can get messy. |
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I personally think it would make way more sense to just make it easy |
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for developers to list some kind of info about how to donate to them, |
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and just leave it all up to individuals. |
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Offhand some issues with Gentoo handing out "salaries" or anything |
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close to it are: |
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1. There will be endless debates over who gets how much. Some |
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obviously do more than others, and so you either pay everybody the |
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same and hear grumbling about inactive devs, or pay people based on |
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activity and then have grumbling or manipulation of the metrics. |
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2. Gentoo just doesn't bring in that much money in the first place, so |
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it would be a lot of arguing over what probably will end up being $50 |
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here and $100 there. |
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3. Now you have a ton of tax overhead, potentially in many |
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jurisdictions. Reimbursing expenses at least in the US isn't taxed, |
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but when you start paying people for contributions you have a bunch of |
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legal issues. |
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4. Then you just have the general volunteer culture. Gentoo currently |
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is an all-volunteer organization, and as such has a certain culture. |
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If you look at FOSS organizations that tend to pay substantial amounts |
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of people you end up with professional management and so on. That |
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isn't necessarily a bad thing but it is a big change. |
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It just is an issue that I don't think anybody wants to go near. If |
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people want to donate to their favorite dev I doubt anybody would be |
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bothered. It just doesn't make sense to have the foundation operate |
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as a payment processor when you have lots of companies that offer |
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exactly that service, or things like cryptocurrency if you want to go |
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that route. |
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-- |
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Rich |
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