[liberationtech] Am I the only one who feels tricked by the Kickstarter campaign thinking that BRCK will be non-profit?

[Juan Batiz-Benet]

Thank you Richard. Very well put. I wish more people understood things so clearly. Many very smart people somehow believe tax status distinguishes Good from Evil, completely ignoring a wealth of counter examples. Some of the most glaring: SpaceX and MPAA.



Foundations in particular have really bad "no for-profits" rules that hurt some of the most viable and promising solutions they want to fund. Maybe the issue there is their tax exemption may be put at risk.




Perhaps these misconceptions may wane as money gets decentralized and small oligarchies control finance less.






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On Fri, Sep 12, 2014 at 1:57 PM, Richard Graves <richardb.graves at gmail.com>
wrote:

> No, I don't.
> Most people don't realize that:
> a) nonprofit = Not-*for*-profit corporation
> b) It is a tax status, not a organizational structure.
> c) It is really, really hard to scale not-for-profit hardware (particularly
> vs. software, which isn't easy, either)
> The mission of an entity is more important than it's tax status, which is
> mandated by the government, can change and is about people's personal tax
> benefits and whether the entity pays taxes or not, because it is working on
> an issue that benefit the general welfare, or is religious, or educational.
> -Richard
> ---
> Richard Graves
> t: 202-372-6756
> t: @RichardGraves
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 2:56 AM, Al Billings <albill at openbuddha.com> wrote:
>> I don't know if anyone else feels misled but you're being a bit of a jerk
>> in the forum posts to which you link. Try being polite to them and having
>> an actual conversation, not just a rant directed at them.
>> --
>> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations
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>>
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