On Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 7:34 AM, kcrisman <kcris...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> What the hell. You too? It's even worse than I thought, basically >> everybody here has had a share of ODK's money and is thankful for it. >> > > Ahem - definitely not getting ODK money here :) nor are probably 95% (?) of > Sage developers. But given that there seem to be few or no strings attached > to it other than making Sage play more nicely with other mathematical OSS, I > guess people are allowed to be thankful? I'm thankful that people who really > know how to code well will be able to do those things. If I understand > correctly, ODK is way bigger than Sage, also, so I'm thankful that GAP and > other programs that provide much of the most technical mathematical > functionality in many areas of Sage will be able to get better and work > better together with Sage. It is unfortunate that there aren't other > funding sources as well, but as we have seen that is just the state of > things. > > Along those lines, whenever William is able to come up for air from SMC > (perhaps the new year?)
Unfortunately, it'll only get worse then, since I'll have to do both running SMC, developing SMC, *and* teaching. At least the Joint Math meetings are a mile from my house this time :-) > it would be useful to revive the discussion of a > true SageMath Foundation, separate from SMCI of course, whether incorporated > in the US or Europe (or elsewhere), but it sounds like there wasn't > currently enough interest in helping with the substantial paperwork involved > in this as of yet. But if this existed it might help support some of the > other Sage infrastructure needs, beyond the *.math.washington.edu resources > this thread was supposed to be about :) Such a foundation isn't going to happen any time soon, at least not with me the one doing it. I talked extensively with a partner at Fenwick & West, and was advised that it is currently basically impossible for an "Open Source Software Not for profit" to get 501c3 status these days in the US. The IRS used to look favorably on such things a few years ago (e.g., Mozilla!), but now looks very unfavorably on open source as being "not for profit" (things that are political can change dramatically from one point in time to another). I didn't believe this could be the case, but the Fenwick & West partner is a top expert who is very familiar with what is going on, and she repeatedly clarified that it is. She suggested starting a 501c3 that has nothing to do with Sage, and also doesn't have the word "Sage" in its title would be the only reasonable strategy... and maybe later it would get involved with supporting Sage. Even doing that, the work involved is more than starting a company, and the rules are tricky involving taxes, so I definitely don't have the time to do that now. For all it's cons, University of Washington does at least administer the "Sage Foundation" budget very professionally, they don't charge anything in overhead (absolutely 100% of donations are spent on sage activities with no cut at all), and they take care of all the dispersement of funds to people (e.g., participants of "Women in Sage" Sage days -- often funded from this, bits of hardware we need for a conference, etc.). One drawback is their stupid "please donate again" mailing list. - William -- William (http://wstein.org) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
