Re: Question to candidates: on-line services

[Milan Bouchet-Valat <nalimilan club fr>]

Le jeudi 26 mai 2011 à 21:02 -0400, Shaun McCance a écrit :
> I think Tomboy Online is awesome. I think we should provide
> more online services ourselves. I also think there's nothing
> wrong with charging money for providing a service. Maybe the
> foundation can't do it as a non-profit. Maybe we need to have
> a commercial front as well. I don't know. But it's something
> we should all talk about.
(Speaking as a complete newbie as regards US law about nonprofits.)
I don't think being a nonprofit is an issue here. You can charge users
for the service you provide, and even use potential benefits in other
areas of your activities (hackfests, employees...). But of course you
can't get that money out of the foundation (members are not
shareholders).

So I'd say there's no problem with setting up online services that users
would pay for (or only some of them, e.g. above a certain amount of GB
used). But I guess the current directors can give more details about the
law aspect of it.


Regards