[aduffy]

Believe it or not, this is how the Linux Foundation organizes itself. It's more legwork than something simpler like Apache Foundation.

Basically in the US you need a legally recognized entity to hold intellectual property. "Donating" the project involves setting up a "Series LLC" that is nested underneath the top-level Linux Foundation corporation, and donating the IP into it.

Checkout https://docs.linuxfoundation.org/lfx/project-control-center/... and ctrl-f "LF Projects, LLC"

[bflesch]

Oh, thanks for pointing that out. I got it all mixed up.

But I think my argument still stands. Linux foundation is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit, see https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/bylaws

So you might still be able to do an "intellectual property transfer" to them and use it as a tax write-off. The "LF Projects LLC" is then the new owner, only the operating company who has the ongoing hosting contracts for the websites.

Edit: Not sure if a donation to 501(c)(6) can be used as write-off without using some other legal loopholes. Quick AI search told me that only 501(c)(3) can do the donation tax write-off thing.

I'm sure there are some good tax lawyers behind this, who am I to understand it as a mere mortal I am just jealous.

[aduffy]

We don't get a tax write-off.

The motivation is to move the IP and trademark into a separate organization so it's no longer owned by Spiral. This means we can't re-license it later, we'd have to fork it, because the Vortex trademark and all that is controlled by LF.