FUNDING files

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Nov 4, 2019, at 00:40, Joshua Root wrote:

> How would everyone feel about adding FUNDING.yml files to our repos?
> 
> <https://help.github.com/en/github/building-a-strong-community/displaying-a-sponsor-button-in-your-repository>
> 
> Full disclosure: I've been accepted into the GitHub Sponsors beta. I'd
> be happy to recommend any other regular contributors who would like to
> participate.

I'm not familiar with FUNDING.yml files or GitHub Sponsors beta.

Are you suggesting that individual MacPorts developers would start soliciting donations for the work that they personally contribute to the project? Or that the MacPorts project as an organization would do so?

If the former, how does that work?

The latter has come up many times before as you know. For those who may not know, we haven't done it before because MacPorts is not a legal entity, so if any donations were to be sent, they would have to be sent to a legal entity, such as an individual. When the project has received funds before, for example from Google Summer of Code, it has gone to our de facto treasurer, who is keeping track of those funds for us, but legally he has to consider that money as personal income and pay income taxes on it.

We have talked before about making a legal entity for MacPorts. Decisions would need to be made about what type of entity we want to create, who would handle the paperwork, who would be listed as its officers, and even in what state or province of what country it would be registered.

It has also been proposed that we instead join an existing open source software organization like the Apache Foundation, the Mozilla Foundation, or Software Freedom Conservancy. That would relieve us of the need to form our own legal entity and may offer us some advantages but would also surely restrict us in some ways. We would need to carefully evaluate the consequences of joining such an organization.

We have also previously not accepted donations because we didn't have very many expenses while Apple was providing our hosting. That has changed, and now some of us are personally paying for parts of the MacPorts infrastructure: I'm paying for the buildbot, and Clemens and Rainer are paying for the Braeburn server providing Trac, parts of the web site, and more. We have also used some of our funds to pay back developers for travel expenses to attend MacPorts meetings.