Directed donations for Autoconf

[John Sullivan]

Hi Autoconf Maintainers,

As part of our ongoing efforts to encourage free software development
and support GNU contributors, the FSF will soon be announcing a pilot
program for accepting donations on behalf of specific GNU projects.

In recent years, many people have been asking us to take this on, and
I'm glad we now have approval to do so.

Since the FSF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, many donors will receive tax
benefits they could not otherwise receive if giving money directly to
individuals involved in projects. Additionally, they can know that
their funds are being handled by an accountable institution.

I'm confident that this program will be successful, but just to be
sure we can get the administrative kinks worked out before issuing a
broader invitation, we want to start with a smaller pilot program
accepting donations for a small list of specifically invited projects.

In seeking suggestions from the GNU Advisory Committee and some
others, Autoconf was named as a good candidate to participate in the
pilot program.

As a rough overview of how the program will work:

  0. Funds will be held by the FSF. They will be disbursed to their
  designated projects either as reimbursements for specific expenses
  incurred by contributors (following usual best practices like
  providing receipts), or as outright individual contractor payments
  for development (following usual best practices such as asking for a
  description of what development was achieved as a result of the
  funds). Expense reimbursement will be eligible for travel, meaning
  that funds can be used to help get you and your contributors to
  conferences to promote the project, etc. Another example of expenses
  that could be reimbursed would be hosting, or equipment for
  development.

  1. The project will designate who is authorized to receive such
  funds, and will take responsibility for letting us know about
  changes to that. One person or legal entity will be designated as
  the ultimate authority for this (likely the same person as the
  primary maintainer).

  2. Donations will be made to the project via a specific form on the
  FSF web site, which can be linked to from wherever. We will also be
  developing a widget for convenient use on project web sites.
  Bitcoins will likely be an option.

  3. In the event the project dissolves or leaves the program, we will
  do our best to channel remaining donations to another project in the
  same general topic area. Failing that, they will revert to the FSF
  general fund (this will all be made clear in our public description
  of the program so that donors understand).

  4. 10% of each donation will go to the FSF to support operation of
  the program and shared GNU infrastructure. This includes covering
  transaction costs charged by our payment providers (currently
  TrustCommerce, for handling all credit cards, and PayPal). So 90% of
  the donation will be available for the project's use.

Are you interested in participating in the pilot? If so, please let me
know as soon as possible. I am looking to launch this in the next 2-3
weeks, and need to finalize the list of who is participating.

This program is not public yet, so I ask that for now, you not
publicly post about the invitation.

If you have questions about it (or suggestions about how it should
work), then please let me know.

Thanks for all your GNU work!

-john

-- 
John Sullivan
Free Software Foundation
Executive Director
GPG Key: 61A0963B

Do you use free software? Donate to join the FSF and support freedom at
<http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=8096>.