On Wed, Dec 04, 2013 at 12:36:08PM +1100, Nathan Hurst wrote:
On Tue, Dec 03, 2013 at 09:10:27PM +0100, Johan Engelen wrote:
Hi all, Please read Martin's email below. "
Any project based funding will have to go through the board and the Free Software Conservancy who handle those aspects of the project.
"
The way I understood things is: if someone is payed to work on Inkscape, that is fine and is not our business (and has happened in the past though similar funding websites, correct?). I thought it becomes our business if the funding/fundraising is brought as an official Inkscape activity, or on deciding whether code lands in trunk, or trademark/copyright issues etc.
How does google summer of code fit in this? That's surely an example of people being funded to work on inkscape. (I have no opinion other that to point this obvious fact out)
Financially, GSoC is organized through SFC. SFC takes care of working with Google to get the checks cut and distributed to students and mentors. As per an Inkscape Board vote earlier this year, we also give SFC 10% off the top as a donation for their services.
There have been one or two other instances where external groups paid for Inkscape development, where the funds were passed through SFC (or at least, we worked with SFC to ensure the funds got received and sent to the recipient properly.)
One of the advantages of working through SFC for donations is that the donor then can treat their donation as tax deductable. SFC has also been of value when the donor and recipient are in different countries with different laws regarding donations; we've had a few such complications with some of the GSoC payments for instance.
SFC has also offered to assist in future fundraising efforts we would wish to have. Bradley has told me he felt that Inkscape has a huge amount of potential for successful crowd funding, and is very encouraging of us to give it a shot. I think we could rely on them for help on legal/financial organizational side of things.
Bryce