As FreeBSD's userbase has grown, the number of people who want to donate materials or funds to the Project has grown. The Donations Liason is intended to streamline the handling of these donations, and to ensure that they are handled in a timely and reasonable manner.
More information will be available as soon as the fledgling Donations Team works out a process. While the Donations Liason Officer has some definite ideas on how things should be done, these ideas should be sanity-checked by a slightly larger group before being given to the world.
The purpose of the Donations Liason Officer is to encourage and guide donations according to a set of community-accepted rules. The DLO has the following responsibilities.
So, you want to donate something to the FreeBSD Project? + Great! We strongly rely upon user donations to accomplish our + goals.
+ +Part of the goal of the Donations Liason Office is to match + donations with developers who can use them. This means that we + don't accept just any donation; we only handle those that have + an interested recipient. This saves time all around, and also + helps assure donors that what their contributions are actually + supporting the FreeBSD Project. The down side of this process + is that we need some information about your donation before + accepting it.
+ +Donations generally fall into three categories:
+ + + +If you have something to offer that doesn't fall into one of + these categories, don't fret! Just contact us at + donations@FreeBSD.org with your offer. Just because it's not + the run-of-the-mill offer doesn't mean that we're not + interested.
+ +The FreeBSD Project does not directly accept financial + contributions. A sponsor organization, the FreeBSD Foundation, + accepts financial contributions for us. Please see their Web + site for details on financial contributions.
+ +The FreeBSD Project is always in need of computers. We are + happy to accept donations that can be used by a developer. If + you have a computer that you would like to donate to the + Project, please contact us with the following information:
+ +If we're going to support a type of hardware, we need that + hardware. If you have a piece of hardware that you would like + to donate to the Project, please contact us with the following + information:
+ +Once we have a description of the donation, the Donations + Liason Office will contact the developer community and offer the + resource to them. If we have a developer who would like the + item, we put the donor and the recipient in contact and let them + work out shipping information. If there are multilpe developers + interested in a resource, we try to learn what each developer + would use the resource for and allocate it most effectively for + the Project. If no developer is interested, we turn down the + offer.
+ +Our goal is to place (or decline) all donations within 7 days + of receipt of complete information.
+ +The FreeBSD Foundation can act as a charitable organization for + tax purposes. If you live in the United States, your donation + can be deducted from your taxes. If you want a deduction for + your contribution, please let us know when you send information + on your donation.
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