5 ms·

Is it really that black-and-white? It certainly has at least some characteristics of charity, such as being non-compulsory, and often done out of a sense of go

• ZiiS 3y ago
  From a corporate point of view it is often black and white based on the tax classification of the recipient.
  • streety 3y ago
    That might be an issue for smaller projects but at larger scales there is often an associated charity. For example https://apache.org/ https://apache.org/ and https://numfocus.org/community/mission https://numfocus.org/community/mission are both 501(c)(3) registered charitable organizations.
• cperciva 3y ago
  In the sense of being "charitable", sure; but the legal sense of being "a charity" is quite a different matter. I record most of this as "sponsorship" and get Tarsnap's logo put in various places; if the Canada Revenue Agency asks any questions I can absolutely point to evidence that this brings in customers to justify it as a business expense.
• alganet 3y ago
  To me it is more similar to giving money to a busker. The busker is there doing his thing, he's not asking for money to play. He's working though, and payment acknowledges the value of his work. Charity, on the other hand, is supposed to expect no work in return. You help people whether they did some work or not. The fact that the OSS dev didn't charge for the software in the first place doesn't mean paying him for that software is charity. It's acknowledgement, and a possible investment if you depend on the software he provides.