GUADEC/Gnome Fund Appeal

With the end of the year approaching, the Gnome Foundation has put together an appeal for help. You can also just head over to Gnome.org to contribute directly - and this year, they become a charity organization, meaning that contributions for US citizens will be tax deductions. Yay, tax deductions!

Comments

Why is there a GNOME foundation?

[phr2]

I thought GNOME was part of the GNU project. So isn't there already an FSF to handle the donation collecting end of things?

Re:A Charity Organization?

[Znork]

Why? By what criteria? Help a cancer victim and they'll die eventually anyway, help a famine victim and they might last until the next famine... but help get free code created and it has the capacity to last and help unlimited numbers of people for a long time. Help develop software that can spare the governments in the third world from spending money on proprietary software and they'll have more money over to spend on fighting famine. Help develop an equal playing field in the IT industry and developing countries will have a chance to create an indigenous industry without paying IP taxes to the rich world.

Worthwhile depends on your point of view. You may get a warm fuzzy feeling from helping someone more directly. If you do, I suggest you work at a homeless shelter or some similar charity, where you can see and touch the people you help.

Me, I prefer being charitable for more longrange goals. In the long run I regard it as more worthwhile.

Re:A Charity Organization?

[zombiepopper]

Gnome isn't a "charity" but a tax-exempt, non-profit organization. This is right from gnome.org:

GNOME Foundation is a tax-exempt, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization and all donations are tax-deductible in the USA

There are plenty of other organizations that have the same status that are surely more disturbing than a group dedicated to working on such a high quality (free) project as Gnome.