On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 4:30 PM Neil McGovern <neilm@debian.org> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 12:57:55AM +0800, Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> > * Louis-Philippe Véronneau <pollo@debian.org> [2020-03-18 12:52]:
> > > Would you care to elaborate on what "the Yorba determination" is? I
> > > couldn't find anything online about this...
> >
> > There was a time when the IRS didn't approve any new 501(c)(3)
> > applications for open source related organizations and basically put
> > them on ice.
> >
> > I thought this got resolved though in the meantime (years ago).
> >
> > https://blogs.gnome.org/jnelson/2014/06/30/the-new-501c3-and-the-future-of-free-software-in-the-united-states/
> > https://opensource.org/node/840
> >
>
> The two links from Martin are probably the best background reading. the
> tldr versions is: making FOSS is not enough to gain 501c3 status by
> itself.
Applications for non-profit status need to be done carefully as they are
scrutinized in most jurisdictions. Looking at the BOLO, it seems the IRS is
particularly on the lookout for commercially developed Open Source Software.
"The members of the organizations are usually the for-profit business or
for-profit support technicians of the software."
I think Debian has a very good case here, and at least to my eyes doesn't fit
that description. I think it's worth the effort to try. As they say "nothing
ventured, nothing gained."
Cheers,
Brian
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