[ros-dev] ReactOS Foundation 501c3 Status - Approved

[Alex Ionescu]

Steven Edwards wrote:

>Hi,
>Just to let everyone know we are now approved to be a 501c3 org in the United States meaning that
>we can give a tax deduction for any contributions received for donations to the Foundation. I am
>in process of trying to get my paperwork together now to come up with a plan to move forward as I
>have never done this before and its been a learning process. Sorry its taken so damn long......
>  
>
Congratulations, and thanks so much for your hard work on this issue! 
You deserve a big clap of applause.

>I would like to propose that we get something up rather quickly on foundation.reactos.org and
>review/amend the draft bylaws as needed as well as have our first real meeting after Jason and I
>have discussed off list drafting a new budget plan for the following expenses.
>
>Bounty System
>Retainer for Legal and Accounting
>Supplementation of Hosting Costs
>Administrative Assistant
>Reserve Fund
>  
>
I totally agree.

>Just to give you a idea I am wanting to budget whatever income we might have in the following way
>
>80% developers/bounties
>5% reserve fund (Mutual Funds, Savings, Etc)
>5% legal reserve and retainer costs
>5% supplement hosting and misc expenses (expos etc)
>5% part-to-full time administrative assistant to help me manage paper work as I suck at it.
>  
>
Two issues I see here:

1) Developers. Do you mean that each developer will be paid? How will 
this be done? equally shared? Not to sound like an ass, but there may be 
times when a developer does absolutely nothing (read: me for the next 
month), while someone else is hacking away 100KLOC of code. Or someone 
that generally only does little fixes (which can be really useful, and 
is all the useful time he can offer due to work/family/school) versus 
someone which already has assured income and spends 24 hours a day 
working on Reactos. Would it be fair to pay everyone the same amount of 
money? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding the issue, but I just want to be 
fair. Besides, I'm sure many developers might want to refuse getting 
paid. Working for free is sometimes a personal choice, and the offers 
certain tangible and psycoligcal advantages. I don't know about others, 
but I myself would feel bad in many ways to receive money by working on 
ReactOS. I would feel as if any bugs ormistakes that I make now have 
monetary losses associated with them.

2) I think expos should get more then 5%. An expo of 4 people would cost 
around 2000$ (assuming 150$/night * 3 nights, plus food and other needs, 
*4 people).  Now at minimum we'll probably want to attend a North 
American and a European conference, meaning 4000$. The European one is 
bound to have more then 4 people anyways, so with 6 people, it'll up the 
cost to 6000$. 5% means that we would need 80 000$ in donations. Seems a 
lot to me at this stage. Then again, we probably won't want to pay the 
full cost of an expo at this point, but whatever, I'm just giving ideas 
and I hope they help!

>Prior board meetings mainly consisted of me telephoning each board member upon the initial
>incorporation and we have not really moved forward since that time. Now that we are all nice and
>legal its time to hit the ground running. Currently our board of directors consists of long time
>developers to ReactOS and Wine
>
>Steven Edwards, Jason Filby, Alexandre Julliard, Brian Palmer and Rex Jolliff.
>
>I would like to get community feedback as part of our bylaw amending process on the current status
>of the board and when/if we should hold elections and restructure. Also from people that agreed to
>be on the board. Do you still want to do it? Does anyone else? Etc....
>  
>
I would love to be on the board. I think I have some pretty good ideas 
for moving forward, and it'll be a good short break from coding when 
I'll happen.

>Thanks
>Steven
>
>
>  
>
Best Regards,
Alex Ionescu