I think the risk of the foundation being liable for UBIT are very much overstated. I don't think the goals in setting up
the foundation are to grow it into an operation with a large
budget and full time employees. If we do start getting more money we have to excercise some care that it's spent in a way
that meets the regulatory guidelines.
You also say the risks you are worried about are "...the resources of the foundation not being disbursed as intended." I would argue that absent a foundation those resources wouldn't exist at all, the funds the foundation end up getting it will get by virtue of being a non-profit
and without a suitable non-profit vehicle a lot of those
funds are not accessible to us.
Consider also that developers who find themselves working under the foundation's umbrella might be restricted from contracting work from commercial entities because of the potential IRS perception that the agent's work might be UB.
Restricted how? by a contract the developer signed with the foundation? I don't think for a contractor such a clause
would be either present or required, and if by some fluke
there was such a clause, then anyone who did not want to
obligate themselves to working under that restriction could
decline the job.
Why not leave the openacs project as an informal collaborative venture (of multiple targets), and create a foundation that becomes a collaborative entity among many others?
That is exactly the plan, there is no intent for the foundation to subsume the OpenACS project or alter it's governance. It's intended to be a tool to facilitate
certain aspects of the project that are difficult to manage
absent a corporatate sponsor.
Think of the things around OpenACS ownership.
Right now, the server is owned by furfly (or maybe "the community" but that is meaningless), the domain name by
Ben Adida, and there has been no trademark registration.
I think it's a great thing that individuals have been willing to act as stewards for the community for such things
but I think no *one* person should own those things. I would be much happier if the foundation owned the domain name, the physical hardware, and the trademark since it's the only way I can see to say "the community" owns them.
