Please answer this questions with a maximum of 150 words per question.
Deadline: Monday 15th 9 am CET
Donating on Flathub has been discussed for ages now: when can we expect that to become a reality, what are the plans?
What is your view on the foundation’s role as the fiscal host of other projects. GIMP, Black Python Devs and others. There is a history of these partnerships being strained at times. How can these partnerships be made stronger and the communities brought closer? And do you see these partnerships being important for the Foundation’s future?
Donating on Flathub has been discussed for ages now: when can we expect that to become a reality, what are the plans?
One thing to keep in mind is that for everyone not currently on the board, the understanding of the current situation with Flathub is going to be limited by the fact that we’re not currently involved. That includes me.
However, as far as I know, the last remaining blocker for Flathub payments is to finish setting up the legal entity so that we can turn on payment processing. I know that due to the ongoing situation in the US, the decision was made to set up a European nonprofit for Flathub instead. I was recently in a meeting with Allan where some progress on this issue was made.
As I said in my candidacy announcement: getting Flathub payments over the finish line would be one of my major priorities should I be elected.
What is your view on the foundation’s role as the fiscal host of other projects. GIMP, Black Python Devs and others. There is a history of these partnerships being strained at times. How can these partnerships be made stronger and the communities brought closer? And do you see these partnerships being important for the Foundation’s future?
Fiscal hosting is a mutually beneficial arrangement for both the GNOME Foundation and the fiscally sponsored project (which I’ll call the “fiscal guest” here for avoidance of confusion w/ the GNOME Project). Unfortunately, turmoil within the Foundation also affects our fiscal guests, and that leads to strained relationships. The mutual benefits of fiscal hosting break down when the fiscal host struggles to complete its duties in a timely manner.
The good news is that the Foundation is in a much better spot today than it has been before. Streamlining and defining operational procedures will make the Foundation better prepared to deal with the workload of fiscal hosting. Hopefully, that means a better relationship with our fiscal guests.
I agree with Adrian that fiscal hosting is mutually beneficial and that internal Foundation turmoil may have damaged these relationships. Clearer operational procedures will help.
I want to add one idea: in several European countries, associations can offer tax deductibility on donations under national law. A European entity strategy could explore this on a country-by-country basis, potentially unlocking new donor incentives for both the Foundation and its fiscal guests.
One tempting but risky path would be creating local GNOME entities in each country. I think we should be cautious here: decentralized legal structures are difficult to govern, create brand protection risks for the Foundation as trademark holder, and could fragment the community rather than strengthen it. The backup entity I advocate for should remain centralized and tightly aligned with the Foundation’s mission.
This has been talked about for ages, and the honest reason it hasn’t landed is that the hard part isn’t technical, it’s legal and governance, and it’s drifted while I’ve been pulled into other Foundation crises. The current consensus, which I agree with, is not to lock Flathub into more US-based structure. So I’ve been talking with Aleix Pol at KDE about using Commons Conservancy as an EU-based “governance-only” home, which supports a one-to-many relationship with fiscal hosts: we could run Stripe payments through a separate operating entity wherever the tax rules require, and still hold funds at GNOME under our 501(c)(3). I won’t promise a date, because missing them has been fair criticism of me. But it’s my top priority for the time I give GNOME, and I’m keen to get it over the line with others on the board like @adrianvovk. Putting financial support into app developers’ hands is exactly what the Foundation should make happen.
I see fiscal hosting as beneficial: it supports aligned projects, helps with our 501(c)(3) public-interest test, and, all being well, supplements our income through fiscal-sponsorship fees. We’ve had some strain through being an inconsistent partner - these partnerships work best when the terms are clear and written down: set out the services we provide, the decision rights on each side, how money flows, and a fair fee. Ambiguity is what causes friction and delay. Allan’s work with our financial consultant Dawn Matlak has got these processes better than ever, making us a more effective host. Beyond the paperwork, bringing communities closer means treating hosted projects as partners with a real voice, not accounts on a balance sheet, and being responsive and transparent. I’d love to extend that support to more projects in future such as GNOME Circle apps.
While the details are still being discussed, there is broad consensus that Flathub should be spun out into its own legal entity (in Europe). This should be a priority for the coming year to ensure that Flathub has a comfortable runway to implement a sustainable monetisation strategy.
Fiscal hosting
Fiscal sponsorship is an important way for the Foundation to support aligned projects and the broader free software ecosystem. A lot of the effort that has gone into streamlining our internal processes also makes it easier for us to support our existing partners.
This work also enables hosting more such programs – which is not a current priority. If considered in the future, growth should be deliberate and matched by the Foundation’s capacity to provide high-quality support, ensuring that both GNOME and its hosted projects receive the attention they need to succeed.
Donating on Flathub has been discussed for ages now: when can we expect that to become a reality, what are the plans?
I hope soon! As I’m not on the current board I haven’t been involved with these efforts but would absolutely love to see this happen. I imagine that there are a large number of legal and regulatory hurdles to be overcome here, so would love to contribute to get this off the ground.
What is your view on the foundation’s role as the fiscal host of other projects. GIMP, Black Python Devs and others. There is a history of these partnerships being strained at times. How can these partnerships be made stronger and the communities brought closer? And do you see these partnerships being important for the Foundation’s future?
I think these could work and benefit GNOME, but we have to make sure there are clear expectations on both sides. Where these relationships have been strained is when previous boards set these up without understanding or communicating the limits.
One thing that people need to understand is that a 501(c)(3) Foundation cannot function like a frictionless, tax-free commercial bank account. By law, the Board carries strict fiduciary and regulatory responsibilities. Every dollar spent must be mission-aligned and formally approved by the Board through a budgeting or approval process. This necessarily creates an inherent “higher friction” administrative guardrail. It also incurs costs on the Foundation that are not immediately apparent, in terms of risk, and administrative fees.
For both orgs, this higher cost means that there has to be a really good reason for us to undertake this, and means we need to make sure the mission alignment is strong. There needs to be a strong partnership between the orgs.
I’m sorry, but as one of the representatives of one of the fiscally hosted project which was named (GIMP), I find this answer kinda imprecise and not at all representing of what @MariMaj is talking about. I am pretty sure we “understand” what a non-profit is.
There has been a lot of administrative issues across the years, and that’s likely what Maria is referring to. As a simple example, just last week, we realized that the Foundation has been forgetting to move our GSoC stipends on our books for 3 consecutive years! We were not able to notice it until now because we didn’t have accounting finance reports until very recently. Now it is fixed (retroactively) so all is good. But that’s the kind of administrative issues which we have had since forever.
As another (big) example, a few years ago, we nearly had to cancel one of our yearly dev meetings because we had a radio-silence from our contact at the Foundation for months, despite repeated ping emails (we needed payments for the team accommodation to be handled by the Foundation). That was very stressful as an organizer of the event.
I could give you dozens of other stories, and many are only starting to get resolved since very recently (basically in the last 6 months, more or less).
This being said, things are getting resolved, and by the way, @allanday is doing a wonderful job here! I am quite hopeful for the coming years if improvements go on in the same direction!
But I wanted to correct this perception of the problem (which would be that apparently there were no problems and it was mostly us, hosted projects, which just had the wrong expectation?) because it really really doesn’t reflect the reality. So if you get elected, I hope this is not how you are going to handle the decisions regarding the fiscal hosting. Because I believe that would be pretty bad, and while we have been finally seeing quite some steps in the right direction lately, let’s not make any step back please!
sorry, late response - I am a big proponent of this and as someone who organizes Linux App Summit, we know that financial transactions is going to be the key in creating a market for third party developers using our tooling. We absolutely want to see this happen.
This would be a major top priority for me and I see it is for everyone else.
The GNOME Foundation already has an agreement with a German foundation: European citizens can head to Free Software - Wau Holland Stiftung and donate (several payment methods are offered, including wire transfer), and it is tax deductible. The money does not get transferred to the GNOME Foundation, but the GNOME Foundation can ask the Wau Holland Stiftung to spend it for them (e.g. to pay for GUADEC stuff, or to ship/order something to FOSDEM). This used to be displayed on gnome.org, but whoever redesigned the donation pages decided to get rid of it. It still works. It probably wouldn’t work for third party projects fiscally hosted by GNOME though.
Creating entities “in each country”, if you were indeed talking about Europe (your message is ambiguous about this) would be unnecessary. Tax deductions work within Europe outside of your own country (i.e. a French citizen like you and I can donate to a German entity like Wau Holland Stiftung and it is tax deductible).
Maybe that’s true between Germany and France, IDK, but cross border donations are certainly not tax deductible between all EU countries. For example a Dutch citizen donating to that German charity cannot deduct the donation unless the charity registers as such with the Dutch tax authority and meets all the standards and requirements to be recognized as a charity in the Netherlands.
Good news! Thanks for adding this info @afranke. I have to admit my understanding of the French gov. website was not very clear about this possibility when I first looked at it, I found the relevant info and you’re absolutely correct! This solves the concerns about my statement in EU.
The EU principle of fiscal non-discrimination means that a Member State cannot deny a tax benefit solely because a donation is made to a qualifying organization in another EU country rather than to a domestic one. Under the EU’s free movement of capital rules, cross-border donations must be treated the same as domestic donations when the foreign organization is comparable to a domestic charity that would qualify for the tax benefit. Member States may require proof that the foreign organization meets equivalent public-interest criteria, but they cannot exclude it simply because it is established abroad.
Yes, making a cross border donation in the EU is tax deductible if the foreign charity is comparable to a national charity. However that still needs to be proven to the donor’s tax authority.
That’s where the issue lies. Not whether or not a cross border donation to a public benefit organization which meets your nation’s conditions to be tax deductible is tax deductible, as per your link that is guaranteed within the EU, but whether the foreign organization meets your nation’s conditions for public benefit status and has proven that.
For the Wau Holland Stiftung: it has not proven to the Dutch tax authority (with this form - which BTW the GNOME Foundation could also apply for itself) that it meets the Dutch conditions for public benefit status. Thus, same as a Dutch organizaton which does not have that status there, donations to it are not tax deductible in the Netherlands.
I hope in the future the EU comes up with unified conditions for public benefit organizations but currently each member state has its own conditions. Yes cross border donations are tax deductible currently, but only if the foreign organization meets your nation’s conditions.
Sorry for that. Yes creation of an entity is not necessary. I just wanted to say, at least for the Netherlands, proof of comparability must be submitted before donations to Wau Holland (or GNOME Foundation) are tax deductible.
Well… although I partly agree with the substance, I strongly disagree with the approach.
This space is a forum and the purpose of it is to discuss topics and you expressed a legitimate concern that clearly helps refining the topic.
You’re anyway not entirely off-topic: there’s the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and you’re raising a very concrete issue—while it is possible, in the event of a tax audit, you’ll have to prove that the donation is tax-deductible in your country and that it meets equivalent criteria. As Alexandre pointed out when he added this point to the discussion, there’s no need to create a new entity. However, we’ll need to have a clear understanding of the legislation in the member states so that donors from all countries can be sure they’ll receive a tax deduction and be able to prove it.
This will be something to be addressed by the potential structure to be created, or the structure with which we partner. Reassuring donors is part of the foundation’s mission and may encourage donations in support of our initiatives.
Because I believe that would be pretty bad, and while we have been finally seeing quite some steps in the right direction lately, let’s not make any step back please!
It still works. It probably wouldn’t work for third party projects fiscally hosted by GNOME though.