• Mission
• Communications
• Resources
• Members

Mission

Some of the most important organizations in the free, libre, and open source software (FLOSS) community are nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations that depend upon donations from individuals and foundations. Over the past several years, the IRS has denied tax-exempt status to a number new FLOSS organizations, while others have experienced long delays in the processing of their applications. If tax-exempt status becomes difficult or impossible for new FLOSS projects to obtain, the future production of FLOSS for the public benefit could be harmed.

The FLOSS Entities Working Group will explore how the IRS position toward FLOSS organizations has changed, how these changes affect new and existing FLOSS nonprofits, and what alternatives to independent tax-exempt status are available to new projects. It will also produce informational materials and recommend advocacy initiatives to address this issue.

Communications

The group will primarily communicate via the [email protected] mailing list. It will also hold monthly conference calls, which will be announced on the mailing list.

If you have questions about the group, please contact Aaron Williamson, the working group chair, or Allison Randal, the working group sponsor.

Resources

• The working group maintains a collection of documentation related to IRS rulings on FLOSS organizations' tax-exempt applications.
• We are working on a survey of FLOSS nonprofits to quantify the needs of the community.

Members

• Chair: Aaron Williamson
• OSI Sponsor: Allison Randal
• OSI General Manager: Patrick Masson
• Mark Atwood (OpenStack and HP)
• J.D. Bean (Software Freedom Law Center)
• Michael Downey (OpenMRS)
• Justin Erenkrantz (Apache and Bloomberg)
• Eileen Evans (OpenStack Foundation and HP)
• Rosemary Fei (Adler & Colvin)
• Richard Fontana (OSI and HP)
• Bradley Kuhn (Software Freedom Conservancy)
• Carly Leinheiser (Perlman & Perlman)
• John Lewis (Apereo Foundation)
• Jeff McKenna (OSGeo Foundation)
• Martin Michlmayr (HP)
• Mike Milinkovich (Eclipse and OSI)
• Diane Peters (Creative Commons)
• Stephanie Petit (Adler & Colvin)
• Simon Phipps (OSI)
• Mark Radcliffe (DLAPiper)
• Larry Rosen
• Karen Sandler (Software Freedom Conservancy)
• Aaron Wolf (Snowdrift.coop)