Re: GNOME Foundation 501(c)3 status

[Josh Triplett <josh joshtriplett org>]

On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 11:07:37AM -0700, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
> 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

Keeping that information in a git repository is really handy; thanks!

Have you considered posting about this repository and its purpose more
widely, such as on LWN or similar, to make more people aware of it?

And thanks for the confirmation about GNOME's status.

> [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)

You might consider talking to the Sunlight Foundation or similar, who
track other information like this, including on a historical basis.

I've CCed Paul Tagliamonte of the Sunlight Foundation (also of OSI and
Debian), who might be able to help here.

- Josh Triplett