Re: Possibility to associate a project

Hi all,

Not sure if this list is the correct place to ask this.

I'm the developer of FisicaLab, an educational application to solve physics problems. This has become a GNU package some weeks ago. For more info you can see:

http://www.gnu.org/software/fisicalab/

>From one year ago, I'm searching a way to get donations to this project. So, I would like know about the posibility to associate FisicaLab to SPI. I live at Guatemala, so not sure if I (the only developer) can apply. Since, for example, with paypal I need a bank account in US. But of course, that isn't possible for me.

Regards and thanks in advance.
Germán.

On 01/15/2014 05:15 PM, Germán Arias wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Not sure if this list is the correct place to ask this.
>
> I'm the developer of FisicaLab, an educational application to solve
> physics problems. This has become a GNU package some weeks ago. For
> more info you can see:
>
> http://www.gnu.org/software/fisicalab/

Given that you're a Gnu project, why aren't you associated with the Free
Software Foundation? I believe that they do fiscal sponsorship of
individual projects.

Not that you're prohibited from joining SPI, but that seems like the
obvious course open to you.

> From one year ago, I'm searching a way to get donations to this
> project. So, I would like know about the posibility to associate
> FisicaLab to SPI. I live at Guatemala, so not sure if I (the only
> developer) can apply. Since, for example, with paypal I need a bank
> account in US. But of course, that isn't possible for me.

Note that we do not yet offer PayPal to our projects. That is planned
in the near future, but we don't have a specific date when it will be
available.

--Josh Berkus

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 11:42:15AM -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:
> On 01/15/2014 05:15 PM, Germán Arias wrote:
> > From one year ago, I'm searching a way to get donations to this
> > project. So, I would like know about the posibility to associate
> > FisicaLab to SPI. I live at Guatemala, so not sure if I (the only
> > developer) can apply. Since, for example, with paypal I need a bank
> > account in US. But of course, that isn't possible for me.
>
> Note that we do not yet offer PayPal to our projects. That is planned
> in the near future, but we don't have a specific date when it will be
> available.

Even if we did, would we able to transfer fund to Guatemala ?

Cheers,
Bill.

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 10:57:13PM +0100, Bill Allombert wrote:
> > Note that we do not yet offer PayPal to our projects. That is planned
> > in the near future, but we don't have a specific date when it will be
> > available.
>
> Even if we did, would we able to transfer fund to Guatemala ?

There's no US rule against it, and we can get decent rates converting from USD
to most world currencies online via our XE Trade account (the other way is
harder for uncommon currencies like Guatemala's), then transfer funds via wire
transfer or draft. I don't know if Guatemala imposes money transfer controls as
some Latin American countries do, but otherwise this should be fine.

A bigger issue is that SPI doesn't tend to associate projects with only one
developer, as this one seems to have. This is partly because of the overhead of
dealing with leftover assets if the project ceases to operate, and partly
because SPI volunteer manpower is constrained enough to necessarily focus on
products of a certain minimum size.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

On 2014-01-16 13:42:15 -0600 Josh Berkus <josh(at)postgresql(dot)org> wrote:

> On 01/15/2014 05:15 PM, Germán Arias wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Not sure if this list is the correct place to ask this.
>>
>> I'm the developer of FisicaLab, an educational application to solve
>> physics problems. This has become a GNU package some weeks ago. For
>> more info you can see:
>>
>> http://www.gnu.org/software/fisicalab/
>
> Given that you're a Gnu project, why aren't you associated with the Free
> Software Foundation? I believe that they do fiscal sponsorship of
> individual projects.
>
> Not that you're prohibited from joining SPI, but that seems like the
> obvious course open to you.

Yes, I know. But FSF is clear when say they can do this only for a limited number of projects. So, before trying with FSF, I'm studying other possibilities.

>
>> From one year ago, I'm searching a way to get donations to this
>> project. So, I would like know about the posibility to associate
>> FisicaLab to SPI. I live at Guatemala, so not sure if I (the only
>> developer) can apply. Since, for example, with paypal I need a bank
>> account in US. But of course, that isn't possible for me.
>
> Note that we do not yet offer PayPal to our projects. That is planned
> in the near future, but we don't have a specific date when it will be
> available.
>
> --Josh Berkus

Well, PayPal was only an example.

Germán.

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 05:19:38PM -0600, Germán Arias wrote:
> > Note that we do not yet offer PayPal to our projects. That is planned
> > in the near future, but we don't have a specific date when it will be
> > available.
> >
> > --Josh Berkus
>
> Well, PayPal was only an example.

SPI definitely provides other online donation methods even before we're ready
to accept PayPal, primarily credit and debit cards globally as well as eCheck
for those in the US. SPI also provides wire transfer information to those who
want to donate that way.

Also, those who want to donate to SPI via PayPal can already do so indirectly
via Network for Good, although it's not as user-friendly as we'd want. This
method should still allow a designation for a specific SPI associated project,
and has the same tax benefits from the donor perspective because Network for
Good has the same tax status as SPI.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org