Open Stack

On Wed, 2015-08-26 at 09:16 -0700, Jonathan Bryce wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I'm very happy to report that after a lengthy process with the US
> Internal Revenue Service (IRS), including an initial denial and an
> appeal, the OpenStack Foundation has been granted 501c6 tax exempt
> status. This is clear recognition of the positive impact that our
> Foundation is having on the cloud computing industry.  
> 
> While it may seem like a small administrative matter, the long term
> impact is very positive for the efforts of the Foundation and the
> industry, allowing us to devote more resources to ensuring the cloud
> revolution is truly open to everyone. We also hope this outcome for
> our Foundation benefits other open source organizations pursuing tax
> exempt status with the IRS now and in the future. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone in the OpenStack community and the greater open
> source world who supported us through the process.

That's great news

One of the things that might be considered now is whether to offer
umbrella support to related projects so that they too can benefit from
this.  One of the reasons the software freedom conservancy came into
being was precisely for this purpose ... and in those days it was just
because small projects couldn't afford to apply, not because the IRS was
knocking back most applications.

Obviously, the projects have to be related to the OpenStack mission, but
politically, it might be beneficial to all open ecosystems to have a
model like the conservancy but with less of an agenda.

James