Corporate status of oVirt and sub-projects

[Carl Trieloff]

On 09/26/2011 05:00 PM, Anthony Liguori wrote:
> 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 


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.
Carl.