On Thu, Jan 31, 2002 at 10:40:54AM +0000, Phil Blundell wrote: > I don't think it should be a big deal to set up national chapters of SPI > that collect donations and just forward them to the US. I would expect > these to qualify as charitable bodies in most countries. I don't even think it's absolutely necessary that the monies be forwarded to the US. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of autonomous national chapters of SPI: Pro: 1) Would probably make donations much easier for donors in respective countries 2) Each chapter could serve as a coordination center for hardware donations within that country. Sometimes I get mails from a person in a foreign country wanting to donate equipment, but he doesn't want to ship it to the U.S. National chapters would probably know more about the needs of Debian developers local to their country than "SPI America" would. 3) It would establish infrastructure for Debian (and other SPI Projects) that would probably be retained in the event that Fritz Hollings and John Ashcroft team up and decide that promoting Free Software is the same thing as sponsoring terrorism, shuts down SPI, seizes all its assests, and throws all of its officers in prison.[1] [1] Don't believe this? This is the administration that has learned that crisis is the key to keeping their boy's approval ratings up, and now that things have settled down in Afghanistan, complete with an armed garrison of U.S. soldiers to safeguard the oil pipeline that will be running through Afghanistan from the Caspian Sea -- and owned by the same American energy companies that out-bid the Democrats for the White House. <http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/forumnew41.php> This is also the administration whose novel idea of a remedy for Microsoft's violations of antitrust law is to entrench the monopoly further. Hang on a second, some assholes are knocking at my door really loudly and shouting... NO CARRIER -- G. Branden Robinson | Software engineering: that part of Debian GNU/Linux | computer science which is too branden@debian.org | difficult for the computer http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | scientist.
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