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<!ENTITY title "FreeBSD Donations Liaison">
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    <h2>Contents</h2>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="#goal">Donations Liaison Goals</a></li>
      <li><a href="#charter">Donations Liaison Charter</a></li>
      <li><a href="#donating">Donating to the FreeBSD Project</a></li>
    </ul>

    <h2>Other Donations Links</h2>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="wantlist.html">FreeBSD Project Want List</a></li>
      <li><a href="donors.html">List of FreeBSD Donations</a></li>
    </ul>

    <a name="goal"></a>
    <h2>Project Goal</h2>

    <p>As FreeBSD's userbase has grown, the number of people who want
      to donate materials or funds to the Project has grown.  The
      Donations Liaison is intended to streamline the handling of these
      donations, and to ensure that they are handled in a timely and
      reasonable manner.</p>

    <a name="charter"></a>
    <h2>Donations Liaison Charter</h2>

    <p>The purpose of the Donations Liaison Office is to encourage and
      guide donations according to a set of community-accepted rules.
      The DLO has the following responsibilities.</p>

    <ul>
      <li>to establish and maintain a clear set of procedures for
        handling donations.</li>

      <li>to respond to donation offers in a timely manner.</li>

      <li>to maintain a list of equipment and resources desired by the
        FreeBSD community.</li>

      <li>to coordinate donation offers with the FreeBSD developer
        community.</li>

      <li>to shepherd donations through the entire donation
        process.</li>

      <li>to work with a small team to ensure a timely,
        informed, and correct response is available at all times.</li>

      <li>to publicly acknowledge donors and donations when the
        donation is complete.</li>

      <li>record the status of all loans to the Project.</li>

      <li>provide open records of all donations to the FreeBSD
        developer community.</li>
    </ul>

    <a name="donating"></a>
    <h2>Donating to the FreeBSD Project</h2>

    <p>So, you want to donate something to the FreeBSD Project?
      Great!  We strongly rely upon user donations to accomplish our
      goals.  Please read below to see how to contact us about your
      donation.</p>

    <p>If you don't know what you want to give, take a look at our <a
      href="wantlist.html">list of needs</a>.  We would appreciate any
      items on this list.  If you have equipment you'd like to donate,
      read on.</p>

    <a name="taxcredit"></a>
    <h3>Tax Credit for Donations</h3>

    <p>The FreeBSD Foundation can act as a charitable organization for
      tax purposes.  If you live in the United States, your donation
      can be deducted from your taxes under certain conditions.  If
      you want a receipt for tax purposes your contribution, please
      let us know when you send information on your donation.</p>

    <p>A tax credit is not as easy as it might seem.  The donations team
      must be informed of the desire for a tax deduction so the foundation
      may be notified, and informed when it has been shipped.  The Foundation
      will also need to know when the item has been received by the
      intended individual.
      The Foundation must then be able to
      demonstrate that the donation is in the <i>public good</i>.  All
      of this together means that while we probably have developers
      who would be interested in that big box of ISA cards in your
      closet, you probably cannot get a tax credit for them; the total
      work needed to process, ship, and document them far exceeds
      their total value.</p>

    <p>The FreeBSD Foundation will provide a receipt for delivery of
      equipment.  They will not, however, provide a fair-market
      valuation of the equipment -- in fact, the law forbids them to
      do so.  We recommend checking elsewhere for valuations of
      hardware donations.  Since many of our donations are obsolete,
      making fair market value hard to judge, we suggest searching on
      Ebay or other used equipment sites for prices paid for similar
      equipment.</p>

    <p>To receive a tax receipt for a donation, you will need to complete
      a <a href="http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/documents/Hardware%20Donation%20Form.pdf">Hardware Donation Form</a>
      from the FreeBSD Foundation website.</p>

    <h3>How to Donate</h3>

    <p>Part of the goal of the Donations Liaison Office is to match
      donations with developers who can use them.  We don't accept
      just any donation; we only handle those that have a home with a
      developer who can use them to improve FreeBSD.  This saves time
      all around, and also helps assure donors that what their
      contributions are actually supporting the FreeBSD Project.  The
      down side is that we need some information about your donation
      before accepting it.</p>

    <p>Donations generally fall into three categories:</p>

    <ul>
      <li><a href="#money">Financial</a></li>
      <li><a href="#systems">Complete Computers</a></li>
      <li><a href="#components">Computer Components</a></li>
    </ul>

    <p>If you have something to offer that doesn't fall into one of
      these categories, don't fret!  Just contact us at
      donations@FreeBSD.org with your offer.  Just because it's not
      the run-of-the-mill offer doesn't mean that we're not
      interested.</p>

    <h3><a name="money">Financial Contributions</a></h3>

    <p>The FreeBSD Project does not directly accept financial
      contributions.  A sponsor organization, the <a
      href="http://www.freebsdfoundation.org">FreeBSD Foundation</a>,
      accepts financial contributions for us.  Please see their Web
      site for details on financial contributions.</p>

    <h3><a name="systems">Complete Computer Systems</a></h3>

    <p>The FreeBSD Project always needs computers.  If you have a
      computer that you would like to donate to the Project, please
      contact us with the following information:</p>

    <ul>
      <li>Hardware specifications: architecture, motherboard, CPU,
        disk space, memory.  (If the computer is an Alpha, please also
        include the output of the commands SHOW CONFIG, SHOW MEM, and
        SHOW DEV.)</li>

      <li>Does this system currently run FreeBSD, or is it
        unsupported?  If possible, please attach a dmesg from a
        FreeBSD install on this system.</li>

      <li>Are you willing to ship this system?</li>

      <li>Your physical location.  We try to make shipping as easy and
        inexpensive as possible.</li>

      <li>Also mention if you want a <a href="#taxcredit">tax
        credit</a> for this system.  (Note that not all donations can
        realistically receive a tax credit, as the cost of supplying
        the credit may exceed the value of the donation.)<li>
    </ul>

    <h3><a name="components">Computer Components</a></h3>

    <p>If you have hardware that you would like to donate to the
      Project, please contact us with the following information:</p>

    <ul>
      <li>The hardware description: model, part number, manufacturer,
        etc.  If you have an exact link to the manufacturer's Web page
        for this component, that would be helpful.</li>

      <li>Is this hardware currently supported in FreeBSD?</li>

      <li>What documentation do you have?  A piece of hardware is not
        sufficient to write a driver; driver authors need detailed
        chipset data from the manufacturer.  (Don't worry too much if
        you don't have this documentation, as it may be available
        elsewhere.)</li>

      <li>Are you willing to ship this system?</li>

      <li>Your physical location.  We try to make shipping as easy and
        inexpensive as possible.</li>

      <li>Also mention if you want a <a href="#taxcredit">tax
        credit</a> for this hardware.  (Note that not all donations
        can realistically receive a tax credit, as the cost of
        supplying the credit may exceed the value of the
        donation.)<li>
    </ul>

    <h3>What we Do with this Information</h3>

    <p>Once we have a description of the donation, the Donations
      Liaison Office will contact the developer community and offer the
      resource to them.  If we have a developer who would like the
      item, we put the donor and the recipient in contact and let them
      work out shipping information.  If there are multiple developers
      interested in a resource, we try to learn what each developer
      would use the resource for and allocate it most effectively for
      the Project.  If no developer is interested, we turn down the
      offer.</p>

    <p>Our goal is to place (or decline) all donations within 7 days
      of receipt of complete information.</p>

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