Re: Project specific donations

GNUstep (www.gnustep.org) would like to start accepting donations.
We're still trying to form some ideas of what and how much we need, but
some current needs include new professionally designed icons and
perhaps a computer farm for testing builds. I'm wondering if SPI, inc.
might offer a good place for accepting and handling the funds for
GNUstep. Is there anyone I can ask about how this might be done? How
does SPI, for instance, verify expenses and distribute funds for a
specific project?

On Oct 11, 2004, at 10:41 AM, Adam Fedor wrote:

> GNUstep (www.gnustep.org) would like to start accepting donations.
> We're still trying to form some ideas of what and how much we need,
> but some current needs include new professionally designed icons and
> perhaps a computer farm for testing builds. I'm

It would see to me that icons are something you could get from the
development community. Isn't there someone in the gnome or deviantart
community that you could work with? KDE has some great icons as well,
were they paid for?

Just my $.02.

mbc(at)debian(dot)org

--
http://hyperpoem.livejournal.com
http://hyperpoem.net
encrypted email preferred // gpg key id: F118F6D8
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. -Anais Nin.

I agree about the fact that there seem to be a lot of good artists
willing to carry on the tradition of starving artists.

But we're still happy to discuss affiliating with SPI. Essentially, we
manage money for your project and spend it at your project's direction.
It's not our job to tell you what is and is not a good use of money
collected. We don't want your project doing anything that could endanger
SPI and its other affiliate projects. We could potentially lose assets
and copyrights we hold in a lawsuit, etc. I once got in trouble with
SPI's then-counsel regarding an event in which I was going to
deliberately violate DMCA on stage. If you're going to do that sort of
stuff, make sure you can't be construed as representing SPI when you do it.

Thanks

Bruce

mbc wrote:

> On Oct 11, 2004, at 10:41 AM, Adam Fedor wrote:
>
>> GNUstep (www.gnustep.org) would like to start accepting donations.
>> We're still trying to form some ideas of what and how much we need,
>> but some current needs include new professionally designed icons and
>> perhaps a computer farm for testing builds. I'm
>
>
> It would see to me that icons are something you could get from the
> development community. Isn't there someone in the gnome or deviantart
> community that you could work with? KDE has some great icons as well,
> were they paid for?
>
> Just my $.02.
>
> mbc(at)debian(dot)org
>
> --
> http://hyperpoem.livejournal.com
> http://hyperpoem.net
> encrypted email preferred // gpg key id: F118F6D8
> Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. -Anais Nin.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-general mailing list
> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/spi-general
>

Well, we have a lot of icons we want designed, and most of the
designers we talked were not willing to do it for free (even though
they do occasionally do this). But that was just an example anyway.

All of our copyrights are held by the FSF, so I'm assuming that if
there was any legal action, they would handle it. Or would SPI possibly
become involved as well?

On Oct 11, 2004, at 2:11 PM, Bruce Perens wrote:

> I agree about the fact that there seem to be a lot of good artists
> willing to carry on the tradition of starving artists.
>
> But we're still happy to discuss affiliating with SPI. Essentially, we
> manage money for your project and spend it at your project's
> direction. It's not our job to tell you what is and is not a good use
> of money collected. We don't want your project doing anything that
> could endanger SPI and its other affiliate projects. We could
> potentially lose assets and copyrights we hold in a lawsuit, etc. I
> once got in trouble with SPI's then-counsel regarding an event in
> which I was going to deliberately violate DMCA on stage. If you're
> going to do that sort of stuff, make sure you can't be construed as
> representing SPI when you do it.
>
> Thanks
>
> Bruce
>
> mbc wrote:
>
>> On Oct 11, 2004, at 10:41 AM, Adam Fedor wrote:
>>
>>> GNUstep (www.gnustep.org) would like to start accepting donations.
>>> We're still trying to form some ideas of what and how much we need,
>>> but some current needs include new professionally designed icons and
>>> perhaps a computer farm for testing builds. I'm
>>
>>
>> It would see to me that icons are something you could get from the
>> development community. Isn't there someone in the gnome or deviantart
>> community that you could work with? KDE has some great icons as well,
>> were they paid for?
>>
>> Just my $.02.
>>
>> mbc(at)debian(dot)org
>>
>> --
>> http://hyperpoem.livejournal.com
>> http://hyperpoem.net
>> encrypted email preferred // gpg key id: F118F6D8
>> Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. -Anais Nin.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Spi-general mailing list
>> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
>> http://lists.spi-inc.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/spi-general
>>
>

Adam Fedor wrote:

> All of our copyrights are held by the FSF, so I'm assuming that if
> there was any legal action, they would handle it. Or would SPI
> possibly become involved as well?

I think the copyrights are in good hands with FSF. I don't know what
their policy is regarding the solicitation of money for a project.
Richard used to micro-manage enough to agitate some developers, but my
last data on that is 10 years old.

Thanks

Bruce

Adam Fedor wrote:
> All of our copyrights are held by the FSF, so I'm assuming that if there
> was any legal action, they would handle it. Or would SPI possibly become
> involved as well?

If someone decided that you were infringing their copyright or patent they
would sue whoever they thought was distributing the infringing work. That
might include SPI if SPI appeared to be the corporate entity behind your
organization. There are other possible legal actions: for example, someone
might give you money and then accuse you of soliciting it improperly or
spending it improperly. SPI would be on the hook for that.

I'm not saying SPI shouldn't hold your funds for you: just that there are
reasons why SPI has to know what you are doing with them.
--
John Hasler

On Oct 11, 2004, at 5:36 PM, Bruce Perens wrote:
>
> I think the copyrights are in good hands with FSF. I don't know what
> their policy is regarding the solicitation of money for a project.
> Richard used to micro-manage enough to agitate some developers, but my
> last data on that is 10 years old.
>
>
He was actually willing to handle donations for us in a similar manner,
but only ones large enough to be worth the effort. I don't think they
are really set up for it.

On Mon, Oct 11, 2004 at 01:11:21PM -0700, Bruce Perens wrote:
> I agree about the fact that there seem to be a lot of good artists
> willing to carry on the tradition of starving artists.
>
> But we're still happy to discuss affiliating with SPI. Essentially, we
> manage money for your project and spend it at your project's direction.
> It's not our job to tell you what is and is not a good use of money
> collected.

Well...there are limits on what we can do with projects' funds.

Donating a member project's funds to the Republican National Committee, for
example, would probable nuke SPI's 501(c)3 status and maybe violate U.S.
campaign finance regulations as well.

In general I tell people they can direct us to spend money on anything that
won't put SPI in legal jeopardy. Of course this should go without saying,
but as the nexus between free software and real-world politics gets more
complex, we might want to stress this point a little bit more.

--
G. Branden Robinson, Deputy Treasurer
Software in the Public Interest, Inc.
branden(at)deadbeast(dot)net
http://www.spi-inc.org/