Who?
- Richard Fontana
- Bradley M. Kuhn
- Eben Moglen
- Matthew Norwood
- Daniel B. Ravicher
- Karen Sandler
- James Vasile
- Aaron Williamson
What?
FOSS Primer - A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects (Chapter 6)
Where?
When?
4 June 2008
The Gist
This chapter of the FOSS Primer was all about Common Organizational Issues, and it talks all about different types of organizations while leaning heavily towards nonprofit corporations because at the time, that was the preferred/recommended corporate form for FOSS projects.
The Good
- Lists and discusses 4 major corporate forms - unincorporated organization, nonprofit corporation, umbrella organization(insert Half Life 2 joke here), and individual acting independently. I thought this was interesting and helpful.
- Gives benefits to forming each different organization, but also lists weaknesses.
- Great information for anyone looking to start a nonprofit corporation and get it registered for tax exemption.
The Bad
- It was mentioned in class that the nonprofit corporation is no longer the recommended corporate form for FOSS projects, and this chapter goes much more in depth on nonprofit corporations than I would have liked. I would have really liked a similar amount of information on for profit structures.
- Makes it seem like forming an organization is a lot of time and effort, which it most likely is, but it becomes more unappealing in my eyes.
- IRS seems kind of obnoxious.
The Questions:
- Is a non-profit organization definitely not the way to go if you want to make money off of your open source project?
- Why does the IRS allow only 27 months from formation for a nonprofit to become tax exempt if they also require 3 years of financial history to even apply for tax exemption?
- What are some ideal cases of successful non profit open source organizations?
My Review
My professor (github.com/decause) made a point in class that we don't have many(if any) courses even similar to my Business and Legal FOSS class, and he proceeded to ask who was hearing/learning of things like "corporate forms" or "trademarks" for the first time. I among many other students in the class raised my hand in response to this question. This chapter serves as another example of something I am finding very interesting that I wish we had more time in the semester to go deeper into along with patents, trademarks, copyright, licensing, etc.. Having said that, I wish this chapter went more into corporations in FOSS that were profitable.
6/10
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