Swag for FUDCons

[David Nalley]

2010/7/19 Máirín Duffy <duffy at fedoraproject.org>:
> On Mon, 2010-07-19 at 16:21 -0400, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
>> On 07/19/2010 04:18 PM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
>> > On Mon, 2010-07-19 at 13:15 -0700, Luis Villa wrote:
>> >> Note that selling things isn't necessarily just a money thing; people
>> >> who have given you money and gotten swag in return have quite
>> >> literally bought in, and that identification (for better or for worse)
>> >> makes them more passionate advocates for what you're doing. In other
>> >> words, they *want* to give you money as a form of contribution; it
>> >> isn't a bad strategy to let them do that even if you don't actually
>> >> need the money.
>> >
>> > Maybe funnel it to someone who can who we support? (FSF?)
>>
>> I suppose that is an option, but that tends to make things more
>> complicated. What if someone likes Fedora but not the FSF (hey, it could
>> happen)?
>
> What if we have a rotating list we divy stuff out to?
>
> E.g., for this FUDcon we'll make a donation to the GNOME foundation.
> For this other event we'll donate to the Libre Graphics Meeting fund.
> E.g.
>
> We could also donate to events like GUADEC and the plumbers' conference
> and maybe could get a sponsor logo placement for those events?
>
> ~m


It's still taking money in - handing out swag/stuff in return. I think
(but IANAL, or a CPA) that's still a sale - and it's still
Fedora^H^H^H^H^H^H Red Hat taking money which looks well nigh
impossible.
It'd be a lot easier for RHT just to hand money to those groups,
rather than jump through all the hoops of making swag, selling it,
hoping you sell all/most of it, hanging on to the money, getting it
accounted for and turned in, pay appropriate taxes, and then cutting a
check to $FLOSSy_ORG. (/me says that knowing Daddy Shadowman doesn't
have limitless coin in his pocket, and that they already fund a ton of
developers and groups, for which we are grateful)