Since I didn't find a NG to make this suggestion I'll make it here.

I think is just plain wrong not to make POV-Ray donationware, since you 
made the IIRC and the keyrings to finance your expenses right? And the 
more advanced POV-Ray gets the more expensive it gets to release it, so 
why not some acceptable number of ads and some donation acceptance to 
help with it? Is so noble that POV-Ray is free and that is one more 
reason we all love it but you don't develop or have a wesite on love 
alone, I mean I think the POV-Team needs a hand here IMO, don't they?. 
Much less simpler programs charge 5-40 $us and most of them can be done 
with little programming knowledge and others get Paypal or PayByCash or 
other contributions.

I simply find it not fair at all POV-Ray not being donationware.

Cheers.

Post a reply to this message

On 2-4-2009 18:00, Saul Luizaga wrote:
> Since I didn't find a NG to make this suggestion I'll make it here.
> 
> I think is just plain wrong not to make POV-Ray donationware, since you 
> made the IIRC and the keyrings to finance your expenses right? And the 
> more advanced POV-Ray gets the more expensive it gets to release it, so 
> why not some acceptable number of ads and some donation acceptance to 
> help with it? Is so noble that POV-Ray is free and that is one more 
> reason we all love it but you don't develop or have a wesite on love 
> alone, I mean I think the POV-Team needs a hand here IMO, don't they?. 
> Much less simpler programs charge 5-40 $us and most of them can be done 
> with little programming knowledge and others get Paypal or PayByCash or 
> other contributions.
> 
> I simply find it not fair at all POV-Ray not being donationware.
> 
> Cheers.
Any idea who should receive the money? Chris as a sort of leader of the 
pack? So he can pay income tax on it? Distribute it to all contributors 
according to how much they did? You surely can see the problem with that.
The only useful things I can think of doing with money in an open source 
collective effort like this are
- keep the website running, but that seems to have been taken care of, 
although I don't know the details.
- award real prices in the competitions and even that may be handled 
better by sponsoring.

In short, directly financing the development is not a good idea, for 
anything else you need to create a foundation OSLT and that would 
probably cost more time and money than it would attract.

Other opinions welcome.

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:45:01 +0200, andrel wrote:

> Any idea who should receive the money? Chris as a sort of leader of the
> pack? So he can pay income tax on it? 

There's no guarantee he'd need to pay income tax on it.  I don't know 
what the tax law is in Australia, but here in the US, you can register as 
a nonprofit organization.  I suspect you can in Australia as well.

But if the contributions are low enough, they're not taxable anyways.  I 
know this is the case in the US - income < $600 doesn't have to be 
reported (I collected about $50 last year in book royalties).

> Distribute it to all contributors
> according to how much they did? You surely can see the problem with
> that. The only useful things I can think of doing with money in an open
> source collective effort like this are

Well, some projects do take donations.  I don't know that I'd make it 
"donationware".  One of the programs I use (the one I'm writing this 
message with, in fact) has a 'tip jar' on the website and accepts 
donations through paypal.

> - keep the website running, but that seems to have been taken care of,
> although I don't know the details.
> - award real prices in the competitions and even that may be handled
> better by sponsoring.
> 
> In short, directly financing the development is not a good idea, for
> anything else you need to create a foundation OSLT and that would
> probably cost more time and money than it would attract.
> 
> Other opinions welcome.

Financing development isn't really the issue, I think.  It's that Saul 
would like to give back in some way.  I think the sentiment is a good one 
with any "free" development effort.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Saul Luizaga wrote:
> I think is just plain wrong not to make POV-Ray donationware, since you
> made the IIRC and the keyrings to finance your expenses right? And the
> more advanced POV-Ray gets the more expensive it gets to release it, so
> why not some acceptable number of ads and some donation acceptance to
> help with it? Is so noble that POV-Ray is free and that is one more
> reason we all love it but you don't develop or have a wesite on love
> alone, I mean I think the POV-Team needs a hand here IMO, don't they?.
> Much less simpler programs charge 5-40 $us and most of them can be done
> with little programming knowledge and others get Paypal or PayByCash or
> other contributions.

Pay someone, possibly outside the POV-Team, to work on POV-Ray code :)

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson wrote:
> There's no guarantee he'd need to pay income tax on it.  I don't know 
> what the tax law is in Australia, but here in the US, you can register as 
> a nonprofit organization.  I suspect you can in Australia as well.

That's probably pretty expensive right there. :-)

> But if the contributions are low enough, they're not taxable anyways.  I 
> know this is the case in the US - income < $600 doesn't have to be 
> reported (I collected about $50 last year in book royalties).

Note that "doesn't need to be reported" != "not taxable".

> Financing development isn't really the issue, I think.  It's that Saul 
> would like to give back in some way.  I think the sentiment is a good one 
> with any "free" development effort.

A fund to help pay hosting fees, or against rainy days like the server 
dying, would seem to be reasonable.  I don't know that there's any 
reasonable way to split up donations directly to the contributors.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:45:47 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> There's no guarantee he'd need to pay income tax on it.  I don't know
>> what the tax law is in Australia, but here in the US, you can register
>> as a nonprofit organization.  I suspect you can in Australia as well.
> 
> That's probably pretty expensive right there. :-)

I don't know; our local community organization recently submitted 
paperwork to reinstate their non-profit status as a 503(c)(4) non-profit, 
and I don't know that there was any cost.

>> But if the contributions are low enough, they're not taxable anyways. 
>> I know this is the case in the US - income < $600 doesn't have to be
>> reported (I collected about $50 last year in book royalties).
> 
> Note that "doesn't need to be reported" != "not taxable".

A minor distinction, since the low income isn't required to be reported 
even - but even if it is reported, it in and of itself isn't taxed.

I went through this whole thing when my first book was published, because 
the advance was taxable but the taxes weren't taken off the top.  :-)

>> Financing development isn't really the issue, I think.  It's that Saul
>> would like to give back in some way.  I think the sentiment is a good
>> one with any "free" development effort.
> 
> A fund to help pay hosting fees, or against rainy days like the server
> dying, would seem to be reasonable.  I don't know that there's any
> reasonable way to split up donations directly to the contributors.

I would say that the "rainy day" fund makes the most sense to me.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson wrote:
> I don't know; our local community organization recently submitted 
> paperwork to reinstate their non-profit status as a 503(c)(4) non-profit, 
> and I don't know that there was any cost.

Dunno. Even setting up an maintaining any corporation can be expensive. At 
least in the USA.  California has $800/year tax, a registration fee every 
year, and if you do business somewhere else you have to register there and 
pay for a resident agent. You undoubtedly have to maintain a separate bank 
account and file taxes for the thing, which is time and energy better spent 
improving POV or otherwise getting on with a life.

>>> But if the contributions are low enough, they're not taxable anyways. 
>>> I know this is the case in the US - income < $600 doesn't have to be
>>> reported (I collected about $50 last year in book royalties).
>> Note that "doesn't need to be reported" != "not taxable".
> 
> A minor distinction, since the low income isn't required to be reported 
> even - but even if it is reported, it in and of itself isn't taxed.

Depends on how much you make. If you get 3000 payments of $500 each, you 
certainly better be reporting them yourself.

And if you're actually a corporation, you certainly have to report all your 
payments even if they didn't get reported.

> I went through this whole thing when my first book was published, because 
> the advance was taxable but the taxes weren't taken off the top.  :-)

Yep. I've run a number of small companies, and the reporting and such is 
quite a mess.

> I would say that the "rainy day" fund makes the most sense to me.

Based on what I know of US laws, putting together a trust is probably the 
easiest and cheapest way to go about it. Of course, much of the POV team 
seems to be in european countries, so I have no idea. IANAL, IANAA, etc.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:52:55 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I don't know; our local community organization recently submitted
>> paperwork to reinstate their non-profit status as a 503(c)(4)
>> non-profit, and I don't know that there was any cost.
> 
> Dunno. Even setting up an maintaining any corporation can be expensive.
> At least in the USA.  California has $800/year tax, a registration fee
> every year, and if you do business somewhere else you have to register
> there and pay for a resident agent. You undoubtedly have to maintain a
> separate bank account and file taxes for the thing, which is time and
> energy better spent improving POV or otherwise getting on with a life.

Corporation != Non-Profit Organization, though.  I'm talking like a 503
(c) organization.

>>>> But if the contributions are low enough, they're not taxable anyways.
>>>> I know this is the case in the US - income < $600 doesn't have to be
>>>> reported (I collected about $50 last year in book royalties).
>>> Note that "doesn't need to be reported" != "not taxable".
>> 
>> A minor distinction, since the low income isn't required to be reported
>> even - but even if it is reported, it in and of itself isn't taxed.
> 
> Depends on how much you make. If you get 3000 payments of $500 each, you
> certainly better be reporting them yourself.

The $600 value is per payer, if you get 3000 payments of $500 each from a 
publisher, they're required to report the income, as are you.

But if you publish 10 different books, each through a different 
publisher, and only make $500 from each one, then it's not reportable 
income and you don't owe taxes on it.  At least that's my understanding.

> And if you're actually a corporation, you certainly have to report all
> your payments even if they didn't get reported.

But again, corporation != non-profit.

>> I went through this whole thing when my first book was published,
>> because the advance was taxable but the taxes weren't taken off the
>> top.  :-)
> 
> Yep. I've run a number of small companies, and the reporting and such is
> quite a mess.

Then you're probably in a better position to comment than me. ;-)  I've 
only taken the payments, but what I've written is my understanding based 
on my experiences.

>> I would say that the "rainy day" fund makes the most sense to me.
> 
> Based on what I know of US laws, putting together a trust is probably
> the easiest and cheapest way to go about it. Of course, much of the POV
> team seems to be in european countries, so I have no idea. IANAL, IANAA,
> etc.

That might be the case, yes.  And same disclaimers apply here to me. :-)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson wrote:
> Corporation != Non-Profit Organization, though.  I'm talking like a 503
> (c) organization.

Sure it is. It's just taxed differently in return for not giving monetary 
benefits to shareholders.

> But if you publish 10 different books, each through a different 
> publisher, and only make $500 from each one, then it's not reportable 
> income and you don't owe taxes on it.  At least that's my understanding.

I'm pretty sure you owe tax on it even if it's not reportable. Otherwise, 
you wouldn't pay income tax if you had 10,000 customers a year each buy $20 
of stuff from you.

>> And if you're actually a corporation, you certainly have to report all
>> your payments even if they didn't get reported.
> 
> But again, corporation != non-profit.

Yes, it is, in the US.  Or at least it can be, and usually is. Actually, I'm 
even pretty sure that in most states, *first* you set up the corporation, 
then you show the bylaws to the IRS and they decide whether you can be 
counted as a non-profit.

Granted, there may be different sets of fees for NPOs and C-Corps or 
S-Corps, but you still need directors, corporate books, separate tax filing, 
and so on.

> Then you're probably in a better position to comment than me. ;-)  I've 
> only taken the payments, but what I've written is my understanding based 
> on my experiences.

Did you take them as an individual, or a corporation, or what?

One payment of $500 to an individual will likely not get you in trouble. 
You're supposed to report it, but there's no proof.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:58:33 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Corporation != Non-Profit Organization, though.  I'm talking like a 503
>> (c) organization.
> 
> Sure it is. It's just taxed differently in return for not giving
> monetary benefits to shareholders.

I'll have to check with our treasurer, but I think she'd have said 
something if we had to dip into the bank accounts.

>> But if you publish 10 different books, each through a different
>> publisher, and only make $500 from each one, then it's not reportable
>> income and you don't owe taxes on it.  At least that's my
>> understanding.
> 
> I'm pretty sure you owe tax on it even if it's not reportable.
> Otherwise, you wouldn't pay income tax if you had 10,000 customers a
> year each buy $20 of stuff from you.

That's sales tax, not income tax.  From a personal income tax standpoint, 
the law states that < $600 isn't taxed (at the federal level, state laws 
may differ).

>>> And if you're actually a corporation, you certainly have to report all
>>> your payments even if they didn't get reported.
>> 
>> But again, corporation != non-profit.
> 
> Yes, it is, in the US.  Or at least it can be, and usually is. Actually,
> I'm even pretty sure that in most states, *first* you set up the
> corporation, then you show the bylaws to the IRS and they decide whether
> you can be counted as a non-profit.

I don't know that it was the IRS that we had to talk to - seems it was 
someone here in the state of Utah offices, not the feds.

> Granted, there may be different sets of fees for NPOs and C-Corps or
> S-Corps, but you still need directors, corporate books, separate tax
> filing, and so on.
> 
>> Then you're probably in a better position to comment than me. ;-)  I've
>> only taken the payments, but what I've written is my understanding
>> based on my experiences.
> 
> Did you take them as an individual, or a corporation, or what?

Individual.

> One payment of $500 to an individual will likely not get you in trouble.
> You're supposed to report it, but there's no proof.

The 1099 that the publisher submitted clearly stated that there was no 
tax liability that they reported, and did include the figures IIRC for 
the amount of royalties.

Jim

Post a reply to this message