On 09/26/2011 03:27 PM, Carl Trieloff wrote:

Right now we will not setup a foundation, however the goal as a community is to provide support for subprojects, help direct marketing etc.

We can pretty much provide all the value for sub-projects without a foundation. If we get to the point we believe we need a foundation to better develop the ece-system we can create one, however based on past experience I don't think we will need one.

Can you elaborate on that? We're actually feeling pains from not having a foundation with QEMU. US tax law is complex and unforgiving so when it comes to thinks like accepting donations, a foundation is really needed. A concrete example is something like Google Summer of Code. As part of the program, Google pays each organization a small stipend which requires the organization to generate a purchase order. So you need some organization that can generate the PO, and then can also cover travel/pay out stipends. If any oVirt project decides to participate in GSoC, this will come up. There are similar problems in accepting donations from other organizations and/or trying to sponsor travel. Both Apache and Eclipse are 501(c)3 and 501(c)6 foundations respectively. Almost every other foundation has some sort of non-profit status too[1]. [1] http://flossfoundations.org/foundation-directory Regards, Anthony Liguori

Carl.

On 09/26/2011 03:59 PM, Anthony Liguori wrote:

...

Hi,

Is oVirt Foundation (or will it be) an independent corporation with a 501(c)3 status?

If so, will the foundation accept sub-project targeted donations? Will the foundation provide legal services for projects?

I'm trying to understands the pros and cons of being a member project to help make a case for joining. Even if this isn't in place today or in the near future, if that's where things are heading, it would be useful to know.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

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On 09/26/2011 04:18 PM, Carl Trieloff wrote:

With another another project 'AMQP' I worked on we would allow one of the founding members to deal with the arrangements for each event/ costs, donations etc and we would apply them directly, and then just circulate. This worked fine for years. That said, they are not setting up a foundation, and I don't have an issue with us getting to that with oVirt. However I don't want to get bogged down in our progress around the project in doing so.

With GSoC, I believe they allow a member of the group to manage the stipend for the project, or last time I helped on the program they did.

I would suggest we get launched and then make this a topic we evaluate as we progress.

That's fair. Regards, Anthony Liguori

Carl.