5 ms·

Would be interesting to read some more details about how this got through, and what the pitfalls were, along with solutions to them. As I understand it, the mai

Would be interesting to read some more details about how this got through, and what the pitfalls were, along with solutions to them. As I understand it, the main tension is that things that look more like industrial consortia, developing common technology primarily for the benefit of an industry, don't qualify as charities, though they may qualify as other kinds of nonprofits. For example, the Khronos Group, steward of OpenGL, is an industry consortium and not a charity. While organizations primarily aiming to educate and serve the general public, rather than primarily to improve the technology or standards in an industry, can be charities. LLVM as a project seems—to a non-lawyer—like it could go either way, since it has elements of both types of goals.

japhyr 11y ago
I have an open source project that's in an early stage, and I'm trying to figure out whether structuring it as a nonprofit is a good idea. I'm quite curious to hear more about the reasoning behind this decision as well.
- rectang 11y ago
  Creating your own foundation is a huge amount of work. I think you would benefit from doing this research, and I'm not going to tell you "don't do it" because it won't be convincing, but I predict that in the end you will not choose to start a foundation. There's a chapter in Van Lindberg's Intellectual Property and Open Source on this topic. (It ends with a discussion of umbrella foundations like Apache, Eclipse, Software Freedom Conservancy.) Check it out: http://www.amazon.com/Intellectual-Property-Open-Source-Protecting/dp/0596517963 http://www.amazon.com/Intellectual-Property-Open-Source-Prot...
  - japhyr 11y ago
    I've never thought of a nonprofit as a foundation. Are they equivalent? The primary appeal for me as a nonprofit is declaring unequivocally that profit is not the goal of the project, and to facilitate donations to support ongoing development. I am aware of the need to establish a board; I've been a board member on a nonprofit, and I've been involved with nonprofits in a number of other roles as well. I think of a foundation as an umbrella organization, much different than a small nonprofit. Is there anything fundamentally off about my understanding?
    - Sanddancer 11y ago
      "Foundation" is just a part of a name, in the US at least. There are definite connotations to using Foundation in your name, like those you described, but anyone can use it. Conversely, nonprofits can be of near any side, from a local community entity doing volunteer work, all the way up to big entities like planned parenthood. So, they're not equivalent, and do in fact have tendencies for a large amount of overlap.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  Backing your FOSS project with a non-profit organization is a great idea. Creating your own such organization, on the other hand, usually isn't unless you're a very large project (on par with LLVM, Apache, etc). Instead, consider joining one of the several umbrella organizations that support FOSS projects (including managing donations and legal issues), such as Software Freedom Conservancy (which covers projects like Git, Mercurial, QEMU, Samba, Boost, Inkscape, and PyPy), or Software in the Public Interest (which covers Debian, PostgreSQL, ffmpeg, LibreOffice, MinGW, Arch, freedesktop.org, and others).
  - jordigh 11y ago
    I would like to add the Free Software Foundation, which covers Octave, gcc, Emacs, Mediagoblin, and the GNU Scientifc Library.
- johnny22 11y ago
  why not join an existing umbrella organization?
rectang 11y ago
The Apache Software Foundation is also a 501(c)(3). To keep that status, we have to be very careful about maintaining vendor independence. We are constrained on what we can do with donations, and we must ensure that our projects do not unduly privilege any commercial actor -- they can't use us to fund activities which would ordinarily be taxed. Consortiums are more at home in 501(c)(6).
- themartorana 11y ago
  It's madness that the Apache Foundation, the charter of which is absolutely unquestionable, must tread lightly, while the Church of Scientology enjoys (albeit different) tax-free status no matter what they do.
  - jegutman 11y ago
    Can we just have a giant open-source religion with a mission like: "Really useful software should be open source if possible" and then have various "chapters" that individually manage the projects? So we could have the Mozilla chapter and the the Apache chapter? The various licenses would be like religious differences.
    - masklinn 11y ago
      Considering http://www.ourladyofperpetualexemption.com http://www.ourladyofperpetualexemption.com is legal[0] and the requirements for a church John Oliver listed during his show[1][2] are not exactly stringent, it would probably work. [0] which you know because the phone number is 1-800-THIS-IS-LEGAL, it's a real phone number too: https://soundcloud.com/user-950117376-873717325/outgoing-call-18008447475-20150816-232603 https://soundcloud.com/user-950117376-873717325/outgoing-cal... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg [2] straight outta the IRS: http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Churches-&-Religious-Organizations/Churches--Defined http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Churches-&-Religi...
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
theresistor 11y ago
AFAIK the LLVM Foundation's primary operations are organizing LLVM developer conferences, which seems like it could be justified as educational undertaking.

japhyr 11y ago

I have an open source project that's in an early stage, and I'm trying to figure out whether structuring it as a nonprofit is a good idea. I'm quite curious to hear more about the reasoning behind this decision as well.

rectang 11y ago
Creating your own foundation is a huge amount of work. I think you would benefit from doing this research, and I'm not going to tell you "don't do it" because it won't be convincing, but I predict that in the end you will not choose to start a foundation. There's a chapter in Van Lindberg's Intellectual Property and Open Source on this topic. (It ends with a discussion of umbrella foundations like Apache, Eclipse, Software Freedom Conservancy.) Check it out: http://www.amazon.com/Intellectual-Property-Open-Source-Protecting/dp/0596517963 http://www.amazon.com/Intellectual-Property-Open-Source-Prot...
- japhyr 11y ago
  I've never thought of a nonprofit as a foundation. Are they equivalent? The primary appeal for me as a nonprofit is declaring unequivocally that profit is not the goal of the project, and to facilitate donations to support ongoing development. I am aware of the need to establish a board; I've been a board member on a nonprofit, and I've been involved with nonprofits in a number of other roles as well. I think of a foundation as an umbrella organization, much different than a small nonprofit. Is there anything fundamentally off about my understanding?
  - Sanddancer 11y ago
    "Foundation" is just a part of a name, in the US at least. There are definite connotations to using Foundation in your name, like those you described, but anyone can use it. Conversely, nonprofits can be of near any side, from a local community entity doing volunteer work, all the way up to big entities like planned parenthood. So, they're not equivalent, and do in fact have tendencies for a large amount of overlap.
JoshTriplett 11y ago
Backing your FOSS project with a non-profit organization is a great idea. Creating your own such organization, on the other hand, usually isn't unless you're a very large project (on par with LLVM, Apache, etc). Instead, consider joining one of the several umbrella organizations that support FOSS projects (including managing donations and legal issues), such as Software Freedom Conservancy (which covers projects like Git, Mercurial, QEMU, Samba, Boost, Inkscape, and PyPy), or Software in the Public Interest (which covers Debian, PostgreSQL, ffmpeg, LibreOffice, MinGW, Arch, freedesktop.org, and others).
- jordigh 11y ago
  I would like to add the Free Software Foundation, which covers Octave, gcc, Emacs, Mediagoblin, and the GNU Scientifc Library.
johnny22 11y ago
why not join an existing umbrella organization?

rectang 11y ago

The Apache Software Foundation is also a 501(c)(3). To keep that status, we have to be very careful about maintaining vendor independence. We are constrained on what we can do with donations, and we must ensure that our projects do not unduly privilege any commercial actor -- they can't use us to fund activities which would ordinarily be taxed. Consortiums are more at home in 501(c)(6).

themartorana 11y ago
It's madness that the Apache Foundation, the charter of which is absolutely unquestionable, must tread lightly, while the Church of Scientology enjoys (albeit different) tax-free status no matter what they do.
- jegutman 11y ago
  Can we just have a giant open-source religion with a mission like: "Really useful software should be open source if possible" and then have various "chapters" that individually manage the projects? So we could have the Mozilla chapter and the the Apache chapter? The various licenses would be like religious differences.
  - masklinn 11y ago
    Considering http://www.ourladyofperpetualexemption.com http://www.ourladyofperpetualexemption.com is legal[0] and the requirements for a church John Oliver listed during his show[1][2] are not exactly stringent, it would probably work. [0] which you know because the phone number is 1-800-THIS-IS-LEGAL, it's a real phone number too: https://soundcloud.com/user-950117376-873717325/outgoing-call-18008447475-20150816-232603 https://soundcloud.com/user-950117376-873717325/outgoing-cal... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg [2] straight outta the IRS: http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Churches-&-Religious-Organizations/Churches--Defined http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Churches-&-Religi...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

theresistor 11y ago

AFAIK the LLVM Foundation's primary operations are organizing LLVM developer conferences, which seems like it could be justified as educational undertaking.