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New Conservancy Offers Gratis Services to FOSS

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the banding-together dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "Yahoo! News is reporting on the launch of the Software Freedom Conservancy. The new organization, started by Bradley Kuhn, Eben Moglen, and Daniel Ravicher, will serve to provide member projects with free financial management and administrative services. The new group was established by the Software Freedom Law Center, which was started by Moglen and Ravicher one year ago."

7 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. Did I miss something? by toomz · · Score: 3, Funny

    Financial management for free software???

    --
    If a chair is thrown in a forest, and there are no witnesses, did Ballmer still do it?
    1. Re:Did I miss something? by Otter · · Score: 2, Funny

      It avoids those division-by-zero errors you'd get if you used an accounting package designed for normal businesses.

      --
      What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
  2. Hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Perhaps this could be of some use to projects like OpenBSD that are not in a position to create their own not for profit entities.

  3. Wine involvement by vinn · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here's some details from this week's Wine Weekly News regarding Wine's involvement:
    http://www.winehq.com/?issue=310#Software%20Freedo m%20Law%20Center%20Update

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    ----- obSig
  4. Hope it works out by richg74 · · Score: 3, Informative
    Having been involved in setting up a couple of non-profit organizations, I can testify that getting all the paperwork done and filed with the IRS can be a real pain. (The initial application, Form 1023, is currently 28 pages long -- not counting required attachments -- and comes with 38 pages of instructions.) As a way to spend your time, it's almost as attractive as having a root canal.

    Sizable organizations can generally bite the bullet and get it done, but this might be a real help to some smaller projects, or those just getting started.

  5. Re:Huh? by Knuckles · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Free Software is not hostile to commerce

    Google

    that you can sell Free Software

    I'm not sure they ever made that claim. That you are allowed to, yes, That you can serives on top, yes. That it will be easy licensing the free software itself for a fee, no.
    Anyway, I'll say "RedHat".

    and that you can make a living writing Free Software

    Countless people

    So why now the turnabout? Why are key members of the FSF now impliying that Free Software needs to be a charity case

    Ther is no turnabout. For a variety of reasons, not all free software projects can get the necessary funding, especially in the beginning- in fact, most can not. This as such does not make them any less viable or at least desireable from a user's point of view, and if you want to see a flourishing free software ecosystem.

    Just like the fact (in and of itself) that many proprietary software companies/projects do not make money for a long time and depend on corporate funding does not make these projects any more viable.

    --
    "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
  6. It would be nice if it worked... by Unequivocal · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I tried to use the Free legal resources touted last year by these guys. I called up and some harried guy answered the phone (presumably Moglen) and he said he'd have to call me back. I left my number and never heard from them again. It was so disorderly as to be amusing. But it was not effective OSS legal advice for the little guy, by any stretch. Maybe they'll get it right on this one, or eventually..