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More on the KDE League
An anonymous reader writes "Timothy Butler published a nice clean-up on the misinformations that were published by dep on Linux and Main. Most of what that has been alleged by Linux and Main turns out to be wrong. Especially, the KDE League has no obligation to disclose financial information. On dot.kde.org, Mathias Kalle Dallheimer, KDE e.V. president, explains that the KDE e.V would authorize the KDE League to disclose its books to the KDE e.V members. However, the KDE e.V is not the only member of the KDE League. Other members would have to approve this."
Linux has existed underground for years, but the fact that large, medium and small companies are all interested in Linux today, and are willing to spend money to make Linux more useful for them, only benefits the entire community.
As an employee of a large corporation seeking to enhance Linux support across a broad line of products, I've been amazed at just how much my company wants Linux to succeed. Of course my company's interests are almost entirely financial - better Linux support for a product means more sales - but it is good to have kernel support for a lot of new, cool hardware. Without support for new hardware, Linux would be forced back into an underground scene where everything had to be reverse-engineered and supported 1-3 years later than release. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing - most of the open source hardware drivers are well-written - but it takes time to develop, and really hurts those who want to use the latest, fastest hardware with Linux.
And, as I'm sure you realize, hardware support is what makes Linux (or any open source operating system) available to the masses. It's not like these big corporations are trying to steer the direction of Linux into something unusable and non-functional for normal Linux users, like you and me. The source code is still out there - the major commercial distributions (Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE) are getting better than ever, the free and source-based distributions (Debian, Gentoo, etc.) are thriving and growing, and nothing prevents anybody from using Linux the way they want to.
If no business people have any say in Linux, as you suggest, then Linux will no longer be useful for business, and will no longer benefit from the investments of those individuals, venture capitalists, and corporations who want to make Linux usable in the real world.
If you want an example of an "underground" operating system, look at OpenBSD. So far as I know, the development team has practically no commercial support or corporations helping to steer the development of the operating system. They continue to work entirely on their drive for perfection, and the generous donations (including CD sales) of their user base. On the other hand, OpenBSD still has no production-quality SMP support for x86 hardware, which is a major limitation and will limit the utility of this operating system. It bugs me, but they seem to be fine with the pace of development. Contrast this with IBM's efforts to make Linux work on their newest and fastest mainframe hardware.
If you really want to back underground, then CP/M and Amiga are still out there, waiting to be revived.
BTW - The subject of the investigation (mentioned above) was the KDE League, which is a separate entity from KDE e.V. Whether or not this business operated corruptly will not affect the development of KDE - they are completely separate organizations.
Super ninja monkeys will one day rule the world!
OfB demonstrated with actual facts (gasp!), on-record quotes from the actual responsible authorities (gasp!) that DEP lied and made up information he published in his articles.
Do you have anything factual to add, or do you just need more aluminum foil in your hat?
How about mentioning something useful ?. is KDE 3.04 is out, with several bugfixes (including two security advisories and several memory leaks in the libs).
The database the OFB article refered to is the IRS Search for Charities web page.
A tax exempt 501(c) organization is a an organization that meets certain requirements (one of which is being a not-for-profit organization) and has applied to and received tax exempt status from the IRS. Not-for-profits can also file for tax exempt status under 501(a) and 501(d). The IRS currently requires organizations that are tax exempt (except for private foundations) to provide public disclosure of certain tax forms such as the corporate 1023 or 1024. See FAQs regarding the Exempt Organization Public Disclosure Requirements for more information.As the KDE league is not a 501(c) organization, it is one of the many other types of not-for-profit organizations recognized by the state of Delaware. See the The Nonprofit FAQ for more information about what type of not-for-profit organizations exist.
The KDE League bylaws clearly state that it is a nonprofit, and the article makes the case that it is not a 501(c)(3) organization. Is it, then, a 501(c)(6) organization (a business league)?
If so, there are, indeed, public disclosure requirements imposed by the IRS. See this page and read the last paragraph. Yes, this page applies to all nonprofits, including business leagues, as this page makes clear. If, in fact, the KDE League is a "business league", Dennis Powell (no matter how much of a jerk you or I might think he is, and believe me, I'm not a fan) was within his legal rights to ask for disclosures. He is not be entitled to the full books, but he is entitled to "the last three annual information returns".
If the KDE league is not a 501(c)(6) either, then I don't see how it can be a legal nonprofit at all, in which case they owe Delaware filing fees that haven't been paid.
You can't just say that you're an ordinary corporation that doesn't expect to make money. With such a status you have to pay filing fees to the state of Delaware, and Delaware is now saying that the league doesn't owe them. So which is it? Either KDE League has to pay Delaware or they have to give Dennis Powell their annual information report. One or the other.
If I'm wrong, then it must be the case that the KDE League has some alternate legal status that I'm not familiar with. If so, what is it?
I'm not saying this to attack KDE. KDE and the KDE League are distinct entities, and I'm not seeing any evidence that the KDE League is serving the interests of KDE's developers or users. Any responses should leave the personality or beliefs of Dennis Powell out, as they are irrelevant.
Is it so difficult to look at their site for the member list?
The KDE League is essentially a "fan club". It was formed, independent of the actual KDE software projects, to promote KDE.
It would be like ME setting up "The Microsoft League" in my basement, and selling Memberships to, say, Compaq, Intuit Software, Ziff-Davis, and a handful of other corporations who like Microsoft. I would have no direct relationship with Microsoft, I'd just be claiming I want to "promote Microsoft".
In this hypothetical case, Compaq, Intuit, etc. may end up having wasted the money they gave me, but it still has no effect on Microsoft...
Dennis E. Powell posted a somewhat sensational story claiming that the KDE League had ceased to exist, asking "what happened to the money?" and so on. (Several people have accused DEP of having a sort of 'vendetta' against KDE in general over political disagreements he had with people on a KDE-mailinglist-hosted-but-not-KDE-related mailing list (i.e. the 'all topics other than KDE' mailing list) - DEP had posted an editorial which began with an implication that maybe the "K" in KDE was there because it resembled a goose-stepping soldier) Andreas Pour of the KDE League posted a response to DEP's story on the KDE League saying, in essence, "It's merely a clerical error, we're getting it sorted out, and we really can't say much more without approval from our members". DEP posted a story in response saying (my interpretation/summary) - "Delaware says you're a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so you have to tell us WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MONEY!". The most recent exchange here seems to be Pour saying "We're not a 501(c)(3), We called Delaware and they said A)They didn't say we were B)Nobody there should say were were and C)No, we're NOT a 501(c)(3)", and DEP's response that he "stands by his story".
As I posted above, I am puzzled why all the noise is coming out of this - it looks like what we have is a handful of rabid pro- and anti- KDE people all getting caught up in the sensationalism. The small handful of ANTI-KDE folks yelling because they want to discredit KDE, and the PRO-KDE folks yelling because they either feel they're being slandered or are worried that the KDE software projects are somehow being "ripped off" by the KDE League (presumably in the mistaken belief that the KDE League is analogous to the Gnome Foundation rather than merely a 'fan club'). The sheer volume of the screaming seems to be bringing attention from a whole mess or more normal people who are trying to figure out what all the fuss is about...
Disclaimer - the above is entirely my interpretation, except were indicated, and could very well be wrong. That IS how I see this issue, though...
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Thank you for a calm, well-reasoned comment amongst acres of rubbish.
According to a comment on the OfB.biz article, one of the things the KDE League has spent money on is a PR firm.
Perhaps that PR firm has been kept busy announcing new releases of KDE, such as KDE 3.0.4, OUT TODAY.
And the man at the centre of the storm, Andreas Pour (also known as Dre), has been busy too - here's another announcement of KDE 3.0.4 at dot.kde.org.
Nice to see he's keeping on in there and just getting on with the job. All this code doesn't just appear by magic.
There are all kinds of tax exempt entities. Section 527 political nonprofits, section 107 and others. None applies here, and most (if you read the disclosure laws closely) are required to disclose some financial information publically.
501(d)s I believe are churches, which I think doesn't apply here. 501(a) organizations are related for foreign entities, and may be subject to disclosure.
In any case, the fact that the KDE league claims to the state of delaware that it is a 501(c)3 is interesting, given the fact that it says it is not such an organization.
There is such as thing as a "not-for-profit" organization where the IRS is concerned, and that's all that matters. States do not determine whether a group is tax exempt or not; the IRS does.
It is a probably a for-profit company that decides not to make a profit. That's what the KDE league appears to be. What you're missing here is that the league *claims* to be a 501(c) to the state of Delaware.
The question is why would it not want to be a 501, especially when it would be so advantageous for the league to file as a 501(C). All contributions would then be tax-deductable.
Why are people so willing to give these guys the benefit of the doubt when they have repeatedly offered unclear and inconcsistent explainations of their activity? Just because they are affiliated with the open source community? Please, take your blinders off. Something smells in the state of Delaware, folks, whether you want to believe it or not.
I think Dennis Powell should be commended for raising these questions.
I'm positive I will get royally flamed for this, but oh well...
This isn't the first time I've seen a segment of the Open Source/Free Software community turn on itself.
The slash in your quote is 90% of the answer. There are two similar-but-not-identical philosophies in this "movement". As with any other two similar-but-not-identical philosophies, tension is constant and conflict assured. If you look down the list of the Holy Wars that have occured during the Age of Software, you'll find that they all split down the same line. There is considerable fuzz and overlap at the borders, and most outsiders can't even tell the difference.
Due to circumstances, history and personalities, KDE is in the Open Source camp, while GNOME is in the Free Software camp. Many in the Free Software camp still don't believe that KDE is really Free Software (read this article at -1 threshold and you'll see). They want KDE to fail. Or if not fail, at least be a distant second to any other desktop. Some people just can't stand the fact that KDE is currently the most popular Unix desktop.
Some people see the existance of KDE as a personal attack on their philosophy. They feel they must attack back, or at least cheer on anyone else doing so.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned