[Fedora-legal-list] Donations Link

[Paul W. Frields]

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 05:23:14PM -0400, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
> Hi Richard, thanks for your email. I'll try to answer as many of your
> questions as I can.

Spot answered almost exactly as I would have, but I'll add a couple
things below in the hopes of helping.

> On 05/17/2009 10:16 AM, Richard Stitz wrote:
> 
> > Does Fedora accept donations, and if so, where can I find a URL to put
> > on my site for this?  Also, I will donate a part of every system sale
> > ($10 USD) to the distro that the customer chooses to be installed on
> > his/her system.
> 
> We're looking into whether this is possible or not.

It's not easy for us to accept money for a number of reasons, even
though we appreciate the gesture.  I would offer that even if we can't
take these donations, there are plenty of upstream projects that could
benefit from them, such as the GNOME Foundation and the Free Software
Foundation.  (I think those are fully tax-deductible as well, for what
it's worth, but you should consult your tax professional since I'm not
one.)

> > Although I am not charging for Linux directly, one could argue that I
> > will profit from each distro offered because it essentially becomes part
> > of the product that I am selling for a profit.  Do I need permission
> > from Fedora before I can offer Fedora to be pre-installed on my computer
> > systems?
> 
> You do not need permission, as long as you are in compliance with the
> Fedora trademark guidelines
> (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/TrademarkGuidelines).

We are working on some updates to the guidelines to make this clearer
in the case of OEM pre-loads, as in your case.

> > I am going to need to take advantage of any exposure my company can get,
> > so with this in mind, is there any means of advertising on your sites or
> > getting mentioned (and linked) here as a provider of Fedora-based
> > systems?
> 
> We have not traditionally done this, but as far as I know, you are the
> first person to ask for something like this. I've raised the issue
> internally and will let you know what I find out.

We have wiki pages on our site that list vendors who offer sponsored
media -- that is, Fedora for sale, where part of the proceeds goes to
fund free media for people in low-bandwidth areas who want Fedora
media.

I think it might be possible to have a page listing vendors who offer
Fedora pre-loaded on systems, but it would need to be abundantly clear
that the Fedora Project is not endorsing any vendors labeled on that
page.  It would be virtually impossible for us to conduct any sort of
rigorous quality testing on the products offered by vendors on that
page.

We still have to do some digging, but hopefully the information you
from him will get you started, and I hope I've added something useful
too.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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