Who Should Help LinuxFund Distribute $126,155.29?

Roblimo writes "The LinuxFund Web site was down for several months, and the project has essentially been out of business since last year. But MBNA kept the LinuxFund MasterCard going, and kept depositing money in LinuxFund's account -- to the tune of $126,155.29 when NewsForge reporter Jay Lyman finally caught up with the current and former project leaders and found out what was going on -- namely nothing. So does anyone have an idea what to do with this money? Want to suggest an individual or group to take over LinuxFund and run it right?"

Comments

A few thoughts

[AKAImBatman]

Oddly, neither the website or the news story goes into any detail of what LinuxFund *is*. i.e. I assume the money comes from special credit card programs, but the site doesn't seem to explain how it's used. Is the money put toward internal developers on the project or is it used to provide grant money to OSS projects? Can anyone fill in the details?

IHMO, the best organization for something like this is for LinuxFunds to be an administrative entity only. Proposals for Open Source software and funding requirements could then be submitted to the project for review and potential approval. Selected OSS projects would receive the funding they requested according to the payment schedule that was approved. This payment schedule would allow LinuxFunds to track the progress of a given project, and make adjustments as necessary. (Potentially even cutting off funding if the project is not viable.)

Such an organization would require only a few knowledgable employees to make the decisions and administrate the funds. With funds transfers being what they are today, much of the grunt work (transfer, accounting, etc.) could be done automatically. Since this is a publicly supported organization, it should publish a detailed accounting of its usage of the money.

To put things in perspective, the current funds of $126k work out to about 5,250 man hours of work at ~$24/hr (~$50,000/yr).

That's my thoughts anyway. :-)

obFSF

[rkcallaghan]

Let me start out with the obvious, how about the FSF? Maybe see if one of their lawyers could be a trustee?

~Rebecca

Re:Problems With Undirected Charity

[ePhil_One]

They could give the money back, but it would probably take days to locate individual donors

Sounds like a lot came from a Credit Card affinity program. Giving it back isn't really a reasonable alternative, since the costs to service could quickly surmount the cost being refunded. Perhaps the money could be used to set up a trust for a scholarship fund.

Using the money for a purpose other than the one the fund was set up for is borderline criminal. Whatever the Linux Fund's intent was, that intent should be caried out by whomever takes over.

$126,155.29

[RetepMc]

Hello Sir,

I have $126,155.29 of unused donations that I cannot access. Please give me your bank account number and all of your other personal information, and i will deposit the enitre amount in your account. Once it is received, all i ask is that you send me back 50%, leaving 50% for your troubles. Thanks.

Give it to Google

[NigelJohnstone]

Seriously, give it to Google to add an extra 126K to the Open source funds they're funding.

You can reasonable expect that they will distribute it with ethics rather than dip into it in expenses. If you appointed any other (read poor/legal/accountancy) administrator you would risk it being eaten in expenses.

Personally, I'd like to see Linux date and time libraries improved. I'd like to be able to convert from arbitrary time zone to arbitrary time zone, down to the nano second from any reasonable year up to 99999 AD.
Go spend it on that, even Windows time libraries don't handle this correctly (they don't handle day light saving properly) and its something I miss for a server.

Re:Problems With Undirected Charity

[swv3752]

As an actual LinuxFund card holder, I can comment on where the money should go. Give it to some Linux related project. I would think it would make sense for OSDL to step up and administer the Fund. Or for FSF step up and administer it (so long as my new card does not say GNU/LinuxFund). Either would be acceptable to me.

Cripes, I would do it myself, but I think one of the existing non-profits would be better for this sort of thing.

Re:Problems With Undirected Charity

[raehl]

Using the money for a purpose other than the one the fund was set up for is borderline criminal.

A part of the Articles of Incorporation or Bylaws or other organizing instrument of any organization should include what will be done with any assets at such time as the organization is disolved. This is actually a requirement if you want the IRS to recognize you as a non-profit, precisely to avoid having to make that decision after-the-fact. I happen to run a non-profit org, and while what we do has nothing to with activities normally carried out by the American Red Cross, in the event our non-profit must be dissolved all of the assets get donated to them.

If Linuxfund was set up properly, deciding what to do with the money should be as simple as consulting the articles of incorporation or bylws for the organization.

If not, well, the people who donated the money should have taken greater care in selecting the organization they gave it to.