[NTLUG:Discuss] Tax deductions -vs- Open source donations

[Ted Gould]

On Fri, 2008-10-10 at 16:05 -0500, Richard wrote:
> When considering donating to open souce projects, how do businesses 
> handle expensing, writing off, or deducting the amount donated?  What 
> about when the donation is placed as a bounty on a particular feature?

Bounties tend to not work that well, most people who've tried them have
been disappointed.

Most of the larger Open Source projects are backed by some kind of
organization that is tax deductible.  Almost certainly any which is
doing Google Summer of Code will be as Google will give money to that
organization for participating.  Of course, ask and check for the
particular project you're interested in.

While money is always nice, I think most would prefer that companies
donate employee time.  So if you could allow a developer or sysadmin to
spend 10% of their time on the project, that could be a greater donation
than cash.

		--Ted