Re: GNOME Foundation 501(c)3 status

["Bradley M. Kuhn" <bkuhn ebb org>]

I advise those who wish to follow 501(c)(3) status of Free Software related
orgs to check this repository [0] that community members maintain.  It includes
a copy of the IRS revocation notice file [1] and the IRS "in good standing"
list [2] (which you can also get from the IRS website directly).  I was able
to verify that GNOME Foundation was in good standing with the IRS as of *today*
at 09:51 UTC with the following commands:

  $ wget -N http://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/data-download-pub78.zip
  $ unzip data-download-pub78.zip 
  $ egrep -i 'GNOME *Foundation'  data-download-pub78.txt 
  043572618|Gnome Foundation Inc.|Boston|MA|United States|PC
  $ env TZ=UTC /bin/ls -l data-download-pub78.zip
  -rw------- 1 bkuhn bkuhn 19044058 May 27 09:51 data-download-pub78.zip

You can do similar with our Git repository as follows:
  $ git clone https://gitorious.org/floss-foundations/npo-public-filings.git
  $ cd npo-public-filings
  $ egrep -i 'GNOME *Foundation' IRS-501c3-Database/irs-qualified-c3-list.txt
  $ git log -1 IRS-501c3-Database/irs-qualified-c3-list.txt

*And* you can also use our Git repository's history to show that GNOME Foundation
never had its status revoked historically -- keeping track of such potential 
incidents for any non-profit is why we download those files each month.  Thus,
this command can confirm for you:
 $ git log IRS-501c3-Database/irs-revoked-c3-list.txt|grep -i GNOME

that while the GNOME Hollow Widlife and METROGNOME Collective have had some
IRS status troubles, GNOME Foundation has had no such trouble.  Perhaps you
heard about the (c)(3) status revocation of one of those orgs and got confused?

Anyway, accusing a charity of losing its 501(c)(3) status is tantamount to
accusing people of losing their driver's licenses due to driving poorly.

In this case, given how trivially easy it is to test the veracity of the
claim, it's particularly unfortunate that you would make such accusations
so carelessly.

[0] https://www.gitorious.org/floss-foundations/npo-public-filings/source/master:
    (It's on gitorious now, but we're franticly looking for a place to
    move it since gitorious dies this month)

[1] http://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/data-download-revocation.zip

[2] http://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/data-download-pub78.zip
-- 
    -- bkuhn