GUADEC/Gnome Fund Appeal

With the end of the year approaching, the Gnome Foundation has put together an appeal for help. You can also just head over to Gnome.org to contribute directly - and this year, they become a charity organization, meaning that contributions for US citizens will be tax deductions. Yay, tax deductions!

Why is there a GNOME foundation?

[phr2]

I thought GNOME was part of the GNU project. So isn't there already an FSF to handle the donation collecting end of things?

Time tax deductible?

[tamnir]

What if you do not want to donate money, but rather contribute with your work? I don't think any time investment can be tax deductible right now. That would also be pretty hard to track and verify.

Still, that would be an interesting idea, specially to the Open Source community, which relies entirely on its dedicated developers. Sure money could buy you some drones, but they'd be more expensive and much less productive than the Open Source people.

So, do you think there is any way/chance to ever see time donations being tax deductible too?

On Vagueness...and a correction

[mbathgate]

What he means is that they "became a tax-deductible organization this year," so any deductions made right now are deductible (save your receipts!).

The letter seems a little vague to me, though:

With the help of private donations, the foundation will be able to fulfill more requests from hackers for travel subsidies.

Blanket pleas for donations to a decent cause will usually bring in money, but what will really bring in donations is specifics as to what the money will be used for and how much they need.

How much do they generally subsidize travel expenses? How many people come? What service is the conference to the developers/hackers that can't be provided otherwise? Why does it have to be held in Dublin, Ireland?

There are of course answers to those questions, but if Gnome really wants my money, then Tim and the rest of the team are going to have to provide more details. Until then, I'm skeptical.

Sun

[pyrrho]

Does Sun contribute $$$?

Just asking since they ship GNOME and plan to make it the default for Solaris 10

this baffles me

[Stanley Feinbaum]

if a software group needs to make an "appeal for help", obviously something is wrong either with the software or the management!

Just look at Gnome's competitor KDE. KDE is still free software, but by having a clean UI and using less resources, it has become the standard linux desktop interface. It's also featured as the default UI in most distro's such as in Red Hat's Linux 8. We don't see KDE group asking for help and donations!

Personally, I don't put my money into what I see as inferior companies.

talk about being poles apart

[katalyst]

At one end, Redhat has finally made profits thanks to its Advanced Server edition which comes bundled with Oracle. And here we have Gnome which accepts donations, and makes those tax deductable. These are 2 organizations, essentially working to promote the same technology... but going about it differently. I guess, KDE will fall somewhere in the middle.
Whatever, OpenSource is on its way.

Re:this baffles me

[Znork]

If you wish to contribute to KDE, you can of course do it here. [kdeleague.org]

Yes, and for a good reason.

[qwijibrumm]

When I think of all of the worthy charities that help the less-fortunate, the idea of a bunch of self-indulgent computer programmers taking advantage of our tax code like this is revolting.

Ok.... where do I start? First off, what makes you think that the GNOME project, or any free software project does not help the less fortunate. The GNOME project, along with the rest of GNU, is constantly being deployed in less developed countries. This helps provide education on computer use and programming skills to people who otherwise couldn't afford the expensive software. The fact of the matter is education is the key to break out of poverty. GNOME, as part of GNU provides this.

How the hell is any free software project self-indulgent? Maybe the feeling of skill and greatness when you submit a patch for a bug fix, but self-indulgent what are you talking about? These "self-indulgent" programmers provided me with a desktop environment, and I have scarcely given a thing back.(sorry I'm poor too.)

The people who make the GNOME project possible don't see a return short of feeding themselves, just like the Salvation Army, or the American Cancer Society. They clear their overhead and donate their product and services to anyone who needs them, just like any legitimate charity.

Re:this baffles me

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't see KDE group asking for help and donations! Yes we do here [kde.org]

Re:Time tax deductible?

[LadyLucky]

Time can never be tax deductible. It would open up a hole for tax avoidance far too large.

But IRS, I donated 20 hours a week to Gnome! Since I assert my time is worth $50 per hour, you can deduct $1000 per week from my income for tax calculations!

You can donate time. Spend that time at work, then donate the money you earned.