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FreeBSD Foundation Needs Cash For 501(c)3 Status 101
ashpool7 writes "In an *extremely* late announcement, the FreeBSD foundation has posted in their quarterly newsletter that they're $30,400 short on donations in order to prove that they're a non-profit charity (501(c)3 as they say). If your organization relies upon FreeBSD, it might be a good idea to see if you can scrounge up the $8,000 maximum donation."
Re:Um... (Score:5, Informative)
PS: if I read the ballance sheet right they have about $200K in the bank. Hardly poorly managed
Re:Um... (Score:2)
Re:Um... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why does the tax man make things so insanely convoluted.
Good on the FreeBSD team though - I haven't used it personally, but obviously it does so well that people feel the need to donate large sums of money to it.
Re:Um... (Score:1, Interesting)
I'll take a wild shot in the dark:
Because it results in fewer companies being classified as non-profit and tax-exempt?
Re:Um... (Score:2, Informative)
change the law - it is a disincentive
Guys stop missing the big picture on the law. Picture it, I'm a millionaire (the name is Joey Bucks) who just made another $750,000 in a stock market transaction. I donate that stock, and thus the capital gains, to my favorite tax free company named "Joey Bucks' Beach Improvement Fund" who's sole purpose is to beautify the wretched Hamptons, Long Island shoreline. Are we getting the picture? The
Who needs an "organization" to contribute? (Score:5, Informative)
$100 is nothing to "pay" for the dozen or so releases I've used in the past four years. I also subscribe [freebsdmall.com] to FreeBSD releases, even though I might never remove the wrappings from the CD cases.
I know the FreeBSD community will step up to the plate in the last 10 days of 2004 to help the FreeBSD Foundation meet the IRS' tax rules.
Helevius
Re:Who needs an "organization" to contribute? (Score:4, Informative)
But I do hate PayPal.
Re:Who needs an "organization" to contribute? (Score:4, Informative)
So write a cheque instead. As long as it's postmarked before the end of the year, it counts.
Re:Who needs an "organization" to contribute? (Score:1)
I've just sent the Foundation a check.
Re:Who needs an "organization" to contribute? (Score:1)
What am I to do?
Re:Who needs an "organization" to contribute? (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree, $(n)00 is nothing -- I've been paying my rent for almost four years now by administering FreeBSD systems, and loving the hell out of it. This is the least I can do. (Well, that and becoming a FSF member...and that's next on the list.)
Re:Requiem for the FUD (Score:2)
Re:Requiem for the FUD (Score:2)
I think Linux is great and all, but I don't think its portability matches that of NetBSD.
Re:Uh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uh (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Uh (Score:5, Interesting)
No... Nobody rivals OpenBSD in terms of security features, and the only one that comes close at the moment is NetBSD. Therefore, there are strong points that Linux does not rival.
"Portage is better than the ports system, and other distributions have binary packages pretty well covered (looking at you, Slackware). At this point, about the only reasons one could claim for choosing FreeBSD over Gentoo are the use of PF, the kernel architecture, or personal preference."
I'm sorry, but that's just wrong.
Portage might be better than the ports tree if someone actually did QA on it. They do not. For example, KDE 3.2 went live with a masked dependency, causing the build to fail. If any of the developers had tried it on a stable system, this problem would have been found and fixed easily. Because no one bothered to try it on a stable system it was broken for a week.
Due to that case and others like it, I have concluded that the Gentoo developers do not do significant QA. That makes it unsuitable for production systems. I for one will not bet my livelihood on someone on the Gentoo forums coming up with a hack to fix some problem before a deadline.
FreeBSD has its problems and it might not survive, but let's not pretend Portage is currently a viable alternative to ports.
Re:Uh (Score:2)
As long as things like new memory leaks continue to turn up in 2.6, I somehow doubt that extensive auditing is going to take place or be of much benefit if it did. The situation isn't going to improve until 2.7 forks, which isn't in the forseeable future.
Also, I honestly don't think t
Re:Uh (Score:2)
I've had significant stability problems with kernel 2.6, even on distros that are supposed to have the resources to do QA on their kernels. Well, not so much stability problems as really annoying bugs that randomly get introduced with each revision.
Re:Uh (Score:2)
Try the firewire support in 2.6. On some systems it would lock up the kernel so the fedora people had to disable it for quite a while. Also look at the cd recording breakage in 2.6.7 - 2.6.9 , some of the kernel changes broke cd recording apps like xcdroast and k3b.
Re:I just donated $300.00 (Score:2, Insightful)
Wait wait wait... (Score:3, Interesting)
*clears throat* WHY?!
I would think that their lack of monetary influx sort of makes the point for them; not-for-profit. Do they qualify for not-going-to-break-even status, atleast?
Re:Wait wait wait... (Score:5, Informative)
This is, of course, answered in TFA, but I'll do some cut and pasting for the lazy:
December 31st of this year will mark the end of the FreeBSD
Foundation's probationary period as a 501(c)3. The IRS requires
all non-profit public charities to prove, at the five year mark,
that they have met the "public support test" or be classified as
a private foundation. For several reasons that are too technical
to go into, it is in the Foundation's interest to remain a public
charity.
The easiest way for the Foundation to demonstrate "public support"
is to pass the "1/3rd test":
[ Editors comment: The following formula is not presented exactly as in TFA, in order to avoid the lameness filter]
Limited Donations / All Donations = 1 / 3
For the purposes of this test, no single donor may contribute
more than 2% of the total donation pool to the numerator.
Through good fortune and the extreme charity of a handful of
donors, the FreeBSD Foundation finds itself at risk of failing
the "1/3rd test". As of today, the ratio of limited donations
to total donations stands at 27.9%. While we have every confidence
that our support history will substantiate that the FreeBSD
Foundation is a public charity, going through the appeals process
can be a lengthy and expensive ordeal.
Donated... (Score:3, Insightful)
OpenBSD also in need of donations (Score:3, Informative)
While we are on the subject, OpenBSD is also looking for donations (around $20,000) to organize their anual hackathon, a one week meeting of most OpenBSD developers.
See Theo's mails to misc@: (1) [theaimsgroup.com] and (2) [theaimsgroup.com]
PayPal'ers -- please provide "shipping address" (Score:4, Informative)
Helevius
Yahoo Game servers... (Score:1)
Re:Yahoo Game servers... (Score:2)
26 Dec update -- goals exceeded (Score:4, Informative)
Helevius
Re:26 Dec update -- goals exceeded (Score:1)