[Board] Second letter/report from our attorney on 501(c)3/6/4 status questions

[Daniel Morissette]

Personally I read it the reverse way as you:

First the c4 is in theory for public benefit and outr problem is that 
our activities provide too much private benefit (David raised that 
contradiction in his letter)... so c4 wouyld work for us only because it 
also tends to be used as a catch-all by the IRS.

I'd lean towards c6 because I read somewhere that c6 "are characterized 
by a common business interest, which the organization typically 
promotes", I'd tend to take business in a wide sense here (I don't think 
the IRS is worried about hobbyists) and consider that all OSGeo members 
are "open source GIS professionals" at one level or another, that's 
their "business", whether they are doing it as a hobby, in academia, for 
business, for a non-profit, or as part of their day to day non-GIS job, 
I'd treat them all as FOSS GIS professionals, and OSGeo is there to look 
after their common "open source GIS professional" interest.

But in the end at this point I don't care about the semantics as long as 
we get approved for one or the other and for good reasons so that we 
don't lose our status in an audit in a few years, so I'll go with 
whatever the majority thinks makes the most sense within the limits of 
the advice of our attorney.

Daniel


On 13-08-14 10:21 PM, Jeff McKenna wrote:
> Thanks Daniel.  I agree it is more clear now.
>
> My opinion: Just from reading around today it would seem that c6 would
> not apply to OSGeo because I don't believe we fit the Industry
> Association definition, as in that case (his words) "people and
> companies involved are primarily there for shared commercial and
> business purposes" is not always true in our case.  For that reason I
> believe we should be applying for c4, as a foundation that 'promotes
> social welfare' (as opposed to solely focusing on business interests).
>
> -jeff
>
>
>
> On 2013-08-14 10:46 PM, Daniel Morissette wrote:
>> Board,
>>
>> Here is (attached PDF) a copy of the written responses of our attorney
>> to the follow-up questions and discussions that I had sent him after
>> receiving his first letter/report earlier this week. You'll notice that
>> we had also forwarded to him the info about OpenNTF getting 501(c)4
>> status that Jeff shared on this list earlier today, so this info is
>> discussed in his responses as well.
>>
>> I invite you to read through it before the board meeting (in 1.5hrs) if
>> you can. What I read there is very reassuring and tends to confirm that
>> switching our current application to 501(c)6 or 501(c)4 might be the way
>> to go for OSGeo.
>>
>> See you all on IRC
>>
>> Daniel
>>
>>
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-- 
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/
Provider of Professional MapServer Support since 2000