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The Future of Libjpeg-Turbo

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Re: The Future of Libjpeg-Turbo

#4

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

LibJPEG-Turbo is a really great library. We tested a number of them, and wound up using it. It has a good, commercial-friendly license, and screams like a bat out of hell.

I no longer work for the company that would have used it, but I'd gently suggest that it would not be a good idea to let it die.

Re: The Future of Libjpeg-Turbo

#6

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

mahmoudhossam wrote: post #5

Can someone please change the title so it reflects the content? This is libjpeg-turbo needing funding, the current title is clickbaity

That's literally the actual title of the posting.

I've seen a number of similar postings here, with similar titles.

I agree that it doesn't necessarily convey the stated goal of the posting, but I wouldn't call it "clickbaity."

Re: The Future of Libjpeg-Turbo

#8

Post by kelnos »

I would consider donating, but I'd frankly prefer to donate to tax-exempt orgs. That way I can donate more with the same effective "cost" to myself. I get that it's not trivial to set one of these up (especially for someone who is already in a funding deficit), but I think it would make donations a more attractive option for people.

Additionally, the email talks about funding in hours of development work, but doesn't mention what each hour costs... would be helpful information to have in order to size a donation.

Re: The Future of Libjpeg-Turbo

#9

Post by kelnos »

_Microft wrote: post #7

It feels like patio11‘s comment on donating vs. paying for open source software should be linked to from here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10863939

For non-businesses, I think one thing that would make donations a lot more attractive is if they could be made to a tax-exempt org (that means I can donate more at the same cost to myself, or donate the same at lower cost). But I get that something like that is hard to set up for someone who is already under water funding-wise. It would be great if there was an umbrella org that could handle this, perhaps for a fee/percentage much lower than what is usually "lost" to taxes.

patio11's comment is about donating vs. paying by a business entity. Something I hadn't considered is that a business (even if it's just a one-person developer who has incorporated) can pay for software tax-free to any org as long as it's an actual business expense, since businesses (at least in the US, and I assume in Japan as well) are taxed on their profits, not on their gross income.

Patrick's issue with donating as a business makes sense: the tax authorities will look at a donation and think it's a part of a tax-avoidance scheme, but if the business pays for a license to software (even the payment is essentially a part of a custom license, and the software is also available for free under the same or similar terms), and has that payment documented, it's fine.

Re: The Future of Libjpeg-Turbo

#10

Post by TaylorAlexander »

kelnos wrote: post #8

I would consider donating, but I'd frankly prefer to donate to tax-exempt orgs. That way I can donate more with the same effective "cost" to myself. I get that it's not trivial to set one of these up (especially for someone who is already in a funding deficit), but I think it would make donations a more attractive option for people. Additionally, the email talks about funding in hours of development work, but doesn't…

Strange thing: Open Collective's offers fiscal hosts for simplifying paperwork, but if you select the Open Source Collective as your fiscal host, donations are not tax deductible because they say "the IRS doesn't consider software development a charitable act" or something. But there's so many software non profits in the US and I really don't understand that claim.

So Open Collective has another fiscal host for charities and those donations are tax deductible, and I'm now trying to figure out what the difference really is as I'd like to set up my own charitable organization to fund a farming robot I am developing.

Anyway I could almost just say Libjpeg-turbo could set up an opencollective as their whole mission is to solve the paperwork problem for open source projects, but for whatever reason their open source software donations aren't actually tax deductible...

Does anyone here know about this IRS issue?

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