Considering the prominence being given to Team OpenOffice.org in some of these conversations:
It appears (according to that font of knowledge, Wikipedia) that an e.V in Germany is somehow comparable to an LLC or LLP in the US and elsewhere. It can be for a profit-making or non-profit activity. Whether non-profits are necessarily charities in Germany is not clear to me either. I point that out because there has been tacit assumption that Team OpenOffice.org e.V is a charity, yet there is not the information one would expect to find about charities, their operation, and the handling of donations at the web site. In the US, being a non-profit has some other obligations with regard to demonstration that it is not simply a creative way to shelter funds from taxation. Also, being a non-profit need not mean that donations are tax deductible, though I don't understand all of those distinctions. I certainly don't understand what the rules are in Germany. I am simply cautioning us to not assume that the arrangements for Team OpenOffice.org e.V. can be understood by analogy to what may be familiar to each of us based on our local situation. It doesn't matter so much, since in any case, since the appearance of Team OpenOffice.org on the OpenOffice.org site as the preferred vehicle for donation to the project will have to cease when ASF becomes the custodian of the OpenOffice.org sites. - Dennis -----Original Message----- From: Rob Weir [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2011 05:13 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Making donations to the project On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 4:20 AM, Ian Lynch <[email protected]> wrote: > This is a transfer of a discussion that started on the private list. It > started by considering the situation of TeamOO in relation to the ASF. Many > people over time have made small donations to TeamOO - some probably that > are philosophically opposed to the Apache license and are committed to LibO > or even something different. This leaves TeamOO in a difficult position in > terms of administering the funds they have. ASF policy is that money donated > simply goes to the ASF not to specific projects. Some would consider that > the ASF donations system is not very accessible to individuals wanting to > donate small amounts of money. This discussion is to explore ways of working > that fit ASF's charitable status and donations policy while enabling those > that want to make monetary contributions to OpenOffice.org to be able to do > so. > 1. IMHO (and I have no omniscience here) the problem Team OpenOffice has is that they are soon to lose the "contribute" link on OpenOffice.org. Without that, their ability to raise funds is drastically reduced. It really shuts off their funding. No one has questioned what they did with the funds historically. It was all used for the benefit of the community, or at least I've heard no one suggest otherwise. But their business model, from a funding perspective, was highly dependent on having a prominent "contribute" link on the OpenOffice.org website, which receives a huge among of traffic. So any suggestion that they can simply raise money on their own, without that link and without the use of the OOo trademark, may be technically true, but i practice I don't see how that could work. 2. We could substitute a link to make ASF donations. But my guess is we would get a drastically smaller catch than the previous Team OpenOffice link received: a) ASF has no European entity, so donations are not tax deductible as charitable contributions in Europe (Is this true?) b) We're not able to say anything to potential contributors about how the donations would be used. All we can say is they will not be used for the benefit of any specific project, i.e., the donations cannot be targeted. We probably lose 90% of the donations right there. One way out: Is there any way, with suitable disclaimers,and with respect of the trademarks, that we can link to an external non-profit organization, for those users who want to contribute to the larger OOo ecosystem? A link that we put along the link to the ASF donation page? Maybe as part of a link exchange, where they agree to link as well to the ASF donation page? -Rob > That is an attempt to summarise the discussion. If I got anything important > wrong or left anything out please comment accordingly. > > > -- > Ian > > Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications (The Schools ITQ) > > www.theINGOTs.org +44 (0)1827 305940 > > The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, > Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and > Wales. >
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