(1) The donations are being requested after the end of the tax year
Most charitable donations occur in October/November/December for tax reasons. This is true of both deductible and non-deductible donations.
(2) Donations are not tax deductible
This isn't a huge problem, if the OpenBSD Foundation were willing to invoice the company for the amount; then it could still be deducted as a business expense, but then the OpenBSD Foundation would have to claim it as income and pay tax on it. This isn't terrifically onerous for them in any case, as they are not a charity, and thus have to pay tax anyway, unless they can just get someone to pay their power bill directly instead (something they've requested).
Another option would be to have a U.S. OpenBSD non-profit that could then support work by OpenBSD under contract, even if that work were something like "provide nightly builds of OpenBSD binaries in exchange for grant funds". They don't seem interested in/able to utilize, this approach.
(3) Invoicing would not exactly require some measure of editorial control, but...
There would be at least an implied expectation of quid-pro-quo, even if none exactly existed, since an audit of the company that was invoiced could require at least a paper justification for the value obtained in exchange for the invoiced amount. It doesn't have to be a great deal for the company, and it could actually be a completely lopsided deal, but there would need to be a token exchange of goods and/or services for the invoiced amount.
(4) If someone is willing to pay their power, they demand they be a Canadian company
I can understand the ramifications for this coming from a non-Canadian company; OpenBSD needs to understand the ramifications of "any port in a storm". There really aren't that many Canadian technology companies in this sector, compared to the U.S.; the highest percentage of OpenBSD-based products are in fact German.
(5) There are not a large number products based directly on OpenBSD
The companies that do have products based on it are generally not hugely profitable, and the small number that there are are listed here: http://www.openbsd.org/products.html [openbsd.org] which gives you some indication of their market penetration.
(6) The OpenBSD folks don't have the most stellar relationship with the rest of the Open Source community
Without assigning specific blame, this should probably be addressed sooner, rather than later.
--
All in all, it's rather difficult to set up a legal fiction that would let it be advantageous to a business to donate.
It's not that they do not provide valuable software, it's just that most of the value they provide is not in the OpenBSD OS itself, it's in the ancillary projects that are associated with the same people.
1. Open a business. Do consulting work and custom programing work. 2. Build servers or partner with a company to build servers. OpenBSD is supposed to be all about security. A very secure server OS from a company not in the US might sell well in light of the FUD over the NSA. OpenBSD can be used anywhere Linux can but Linux has the mindshare. Maybe a Canadian company can make a go at secure servers.
...
(7) The only options they have are for donations in USD, CAD or Euros. While I routinely buy USD for paying bribes, and Euros for eating while in transit, I don't actually have a bank account that operates in any of those currencies.
Introducing, the 1010, a one-bit processor.
0 NOP No Operation
1 JMP Jump (address specified by next 2 bits)
Problems with donating to OpenBSD (Score:5, Insightful)
Problems with donating to OpenBSD
(1) The donations are being requested after the end of the tax year
Most charitable donations occur in October/November/December for tax reasons. This is true of both deductible and non-deductible donations.
(2) Donations are not tax deductible
This isn't a huge problem, if the OpenBSD Foundation were willing to invoice the company for the amount; then it could still be deducted as a business expense, but then the OpenBSD Foundation would have to claim it as income and pay tax on it. This isn't terrifically onerous for them in any case, as they are not a charity, and thus have to pay tax anyway, unless they can just get someone to pay their power bill directly instead (something they've requested).
Another option would be to have a U.S. OpenBSD non-profit that could then support work by OpenBSD under contract, even if that work were something like "provide nightly builds of OpenBSD binaries in exchange for grant funds". They don't seem interested in/able to utilize, this approach.
(3) Invoicing would not exactly require some measure of editorial control, but...
There would be at least an implied expectation of quid-pro-quo, even if none exactly existed, since an audit of the company that was invoiced could require at least a paper justification for the value obtained in exchange for the invoiced amount. It doesn't have to be a great deal for the company, and it could actually be a completely lopsided deal, but there would need to be a token exchange of goods and/or services for the invoiced amount.
(4) If someone is willing to pay their power, they demand they be a Canadian company
I can understand the ramifications for this coming from a non-Canadian company; OpenBSD needs to understand the ramifications of "any port in a storm". There really aren't that many Canadian technology companies in this sector, compared to the U.S.; the highest percentage of OpenBSD-based products are in fact German.
(5) There are not a large number products based directly on OpenBSD
The companies that do have products based on it are generally not hugely profitable, and the small number that there are are listed here: http://www.openbsd.org/products.html [openbsd.org] which gives you some indication of their market penetration.
(6) The OpenBSD folks don't have the most stellar relationship with the rest of the Open Source community
Without assigning specific blame, this should probably be addressed sooner, rather than later.
--
All in all, it's rather difficult to set up a legal fiction that would let it be advantageous to a business to donate.
It's not that they do not provide valuable software, it's just that most of the value they provide is not in the OpenBSD OS itself, it's in the ancillary projects that are associated with the same people.
Re: (Score:2)
1. Open a business. Do consulting work and custom programing work.
2. Build servers or partner with a company to build servers. OpenBSD is supposed to be all about security. A very secure server OS from a company not in the US might sell well in light of the FUD over the NSA.
OpenBSD can be used anywhere Linux can but Linux has the mindshare. Maybe a Canadian company can make a go at secure servers.
Re: (Score:2)
(7) The only options they have are for donations in USD, CAD or Euros. While I routinely buy USD for paying bribes, and Euros for eating while in transit, I don't actually have a bank account that operates in any of those currencies.