[OpenAFS] Re: [OpenAFS-devel] An open letter from the OpenAFS Council of Elders

[Marcus Watts]

Steve Simmons <scs@umich.edu> writes:
...
> We're a state-funded institution as well, so 501c(3) for OpenAFS  
> doesn't mean that much to us.
...

501c3 doesn't mean anything directly to us.  We're certainly not going to
see a tax break.  However, in the funny world of grants and donations,
it can still matter a lot.  It is very often the case that equipment
the university gets for various grants and proposals have particular
restrictions on them - commonly at the end of the grant it can be either
kept, sold for what it's worth, or donated ("transferred") to certain
types of 'qualifying' organizations.  501c3 is one possible qualification.
There are various less tangible ways in which it's easier (or at least
different) for the university to work with 501c3 organizations.  I'm not
an expert on what those ways are, but that could matter if somebody here
were to decide to get into the business of applying for government grants
to work on AFS.

				-Marcus Watts