FreeBSD Foundation Passes '04 Small Donation Needs

MTS writes "Thanks to the generous contributions of over 800 donors, a combination of both first-time donors and existing supportors, the FreeBSD Foundation has met and exceeded its fund-raising goal necessary to qualify for the 1/3 'public support' goal required to maintain its 501(c)3 status with the IRS. Your continued donations will help to support a broad variety of FreeBSD activities, including critical development, developer collaboration, testing, and involvement in standards processes." Convoluted tax laws meant that FreeBSD's success in attracting larger donations had threatened the organization's tax-free status.

Comments

More about the "quota"?

[agent dero]

Will this quota of 1/3 of public donations need to be held every year from now on? Or is this just to _acquire_ non-profit status.

None the less, woohoo for the foundation, help make FreeBSD 6.0 even better ;)

Re:More about the "quota"?

[pbnagel]

The 1/3 test has nothing to do with the foundation's Section 501(c)(3) charitable status. There are actually two kinds of Section 501(c)(3) organizations -- "publicly supported organizations" and "private foundations." Private foundations are subject to greater restrictions on their activities (prohibitions against self-dealing, required annual distributions, stricter limitations on owning businesses, and the like), as well as lower limits on the deductibility of contributions, and so avoiding private foundation status is always desirable.

To become a publicly supported organization, a charity must show that it enjoys broad support from the general public, as opposed to having its funding concentrated in a small number of donors. One of the publicly supported organizations tests requires that 1/3 of the organization's funding come from individuals, corporate and foundation grants, and other public charities, and amounts from any one source (except other public charities or the government) in excess of two percent of the organization's total support do not count for these purposes. This 1/3 test is performed each year, but is based on the average received over the previous four years.

If an organization cannot meet the 1/3 test, it may still qualify as a publicly supported charity so long as its "good" support (grants and contributions that pass through the two-percent filter) amount to more than ten percent of its total revenue and it can show that it is engaged in a continuous fundraising program, has a board representative of the community, and satisfies other factors. The BSD Foundation appeared to have been on the verge of falling just shy of the 1/3 test, but probably would have had little difficulty satisfying the alternate 10-percent-plus-facts-and-circumstances test and therefore probably would have remained a publicly supported charity even without its recent plea for donations. Nonetheless, every new Section 501(c)(3) organization is given a five-year test period in which to attempt to meet either test, and at the end of that period must send in a worksheet to the IRS showing how it did, which means that some official in the IRS actually will take a look at the foundation's public charity status.

All publicly supported Section 501(c)(3) organizations must complete a schedule on their annual tax returns (Form 990) that demonstrates their on-going compliance with the public support test. Interestingly enough, though, the IRS simply does not seem to have the computer or personnel resources to do anything about an organization that files a 990 disclosing that it has unquestionably failed the public support test, and there are many charities that have survived the initial five-year probationary period, that have subsequently filed 990's showing that their public support is well below even the minimum 10 percent, and yet that remain classified by the IRS as a publicly supported charity, and not a private foundation.

Re:Heh

[VVelox]

It has nothing to do with communist ideas or even being free. Open source easily fits in with capitalism as well or any other economics system.

Open Source just means that you can easily view the source code and generally possibly to modify it.

If you want to talk about ideas, you should talk about different groups and the like, but not generalize like that.

47$ Donations

[Delita]

For those that care, the average donation amounts to about 47$. Even the smallest of donations were quite helpful here. I do wonder if anyone actually donated the 8000$ max...

I support FreeBSD with subscriptions

[mabu]

As a long time FreeBSD user and supporter, it should be noted that many of us support the effort with our auto-subscriptions, where we pay $25 for each new release. On many of my servers I'm still running old versions, and I'm aware that I don't need the CDs for the latest versions mailed to me, but this is my way of supporting their efforts by kicking back money each time they have a major release. I urge all FreeBSD users to subscribe and provide the project with a solid source of recurring revenue that helps keep their project going.

While the funding drives are helpful, it's important to give the team a more substantive commitment and ongoing revenue they can bank on. It's a small price to pay. Subscribe and make a difference!

Re:Heh

[dn15]

open source is an attempt at communist ideals emulated within a capitalist reality

While this may appear to be the case at first glance, it is not true. Take the BSD license -- while the code is free, it is reusable in commercial software and changes need not be released. Effectively it allows a publicly created resource to be used in a private or commercial venture. This type of openness is a far cry from any license a Communist would use.

The is one thing that I believe makes the BSD license a beautiful thing. The same code, created under the same license, can be freely reused in something totally open (such as Linux), partly open (such as Mac OS X), or totally closed (such as Windows XP.) Communist? Hardly.

Re:Fuckin' morons! Support D-fly! FreeBSD IS DEAD!

[MikeCapone]

Well, if you ask so nicely... How can I resist?