<div dir="ltr">Something like the Software Freedom Conservancy was something I was hoping existed - I don't know if anyone else has ever heard of them, but I bet they could help.<div><br></div><div>Yeah, I was looking at mac1.metal instances which are surprisingly cheap for macs, but still pretty expensive.</div><div><br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>—Mark<br></div><div>_______________________<br>Mark E. Anderson <<a href="mailto:mark@macports.org" target="_blank">mark@macports.org</a>><br></div><div><a href="https://trac.macports.org/wiki/mark" target="_blank">MacPorts Trac WikiPage</a><br></div><div><a href="https://github.com/markemer" target="_blank">GitHub Profile</a><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, May 17, 2021 at 9:14 PM Andrew Janke <<a href="mailto:floss@apjanke.net">floss@apjanke.net</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
Software Freedom Conservancy exists largely to help FLOSS orgs do
this sort of thing safely and conveniently, while retaining
independent governance. I believe Homebrew had a good experience
with them, and Buildbot itself is a member. Was that one of the
options considered when this question came up before?<br>
<br>
<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/" target="_blank">https://sfconservancy.org/</a><br>
<br>
Amazon AWS supports FLOSS projects by providing free AWS Promotional
Credits to FLOSS projects. It looks like you could maybe use these
to buy mac1.metal EC2 instances, and that would give you
full-machine root access. But I dunno; those are expensive instances
and the provisioning level and conversion process seems a little
complicated. The AWS mac1.metal VMs are Intel-based, not Apple
Silicon.<br>
<br>
<a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/aws-promotional-credits-open-source-projects/" target="_blank">https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/aws-promotional-credits-open-source-projects/</a><br>
<br>
I dunno how much credits Amazon would want to give you, but MacPorts
is a name with some pull, and Amazon has deep pockets. Couldn't hurt
to ask?<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Andrew<br>
<br>
<div>On 5/17/21 8:22 PM, Mark Anderson
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Yeah, I was thinking of the US as well, and I meant
non-profit, which doesn't have tax deductible donations but is
assumed to not make money. The problem is there is a lot of
work around becoming a legal entity and accepting donations or
whatever. I honestly have no idea how much work exactly - but
certainly not zero. I have no idea how non-US entities work.</div>
<br clear="all">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>—Mark<br>
</div>
<div>_______________________<br>
Mark E. Anderson <<a href="mailto:mark@macports.org" target="_blank">mark@macports.org</a>><br>
</div>
<div><a href="https://trac.macports.org/wiki/mark" target="_blank">MacPorts Trac
WikiPage</a><br>
</div>
<div><a href="https://github.com/markemer" target="_blank">GitHub Profile</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, May 17, 2021 at 2:02
AM Ryan Schmidt <<a href="mailto:ryandesign@macports.org" target="_blank">ryandesign@macports.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">On
May 16, 2021, at 14:46, Mark Anderson wrote:<br>
<br>
> I keep wondering if we became like a not-for-profit If we
could get someone like MacStadium or Amazon or something to
donate server time to us. Or accept donations from Github
sponsorship. I could look into what that would take, although
it might be way more trouble than it's worth. I think my
current corp lawyer knows non-profit law - I could bring it up
next time I see them.<br>
<br>
MacStadium already donates the use of an Apple Silicon Mac
mini to us. I am not aware of whether Amazon offers free
persistent Mac servers with root access to open source
projects.<br>
<br>
Accepting donations through GitHub Sponsors or any other means
would, I suspect, require the formation of a legal entity for
MacPorts, which would be the owner of the business bank
account we would probably have to open. We've discussed
becoming a legal entity a few times over the years but it
hasn't been done. If we do it, my preference would be for
MacPorts to be a U.S. entity, since I am in the U.S. and since
MacPorts was started by Apple and is for the benefit of Apple
users and Apple is a U.S. company. A different suggestion was
that we should join an existing free software organization and
leave all the legalities up to them, and funnel donations
through them. I don't think that idea was supported by
everyone so that didn't happen either.<br>
<br>
If we accepted donations, we would have to develop guidelines
for how the donations could be spent.<br>
<br>
Being recognized as a not-for-profit is a whole 'nother can of
worms. First one has to form a legal entity, then one has to
apply to be recognized as a not-for-profit (which incurs
additional fees) and make a case for why that should be, a
process which can take years, and the answer to the
application could be no. For example there was increased
scrutiny of non-profit organization applications in the field
of open source software in 2010; see <a href="https://opensource.org/node/840" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://opensource.org/node/840</a>.
That's what I recall from researching the process in the U.S.
It may differ in other countries.<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
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</blockquote></div>