OpenWrt finance situation

[Hauke Mehrtens]

On 5/1/25 23:54, Denver Gingerich wrote:
> On 2025-05-01 1:43 p.m., Hauke Mehrtens wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I do not have an overview of the OpenWrt finances. The money of the 
>> OpenWrt project is currently managed by the Software Freedom 
>> Conservancy, see https://openwrt.org/donate
>>
>> The Software in the Public Interest (SPI) published the account 
>> balance in their annual report, I haven't see such report from the SFC.
>>
>> I would like to know:
>>   * What is our current account balance?
>>   * How much money do we normally get per year through donations?
>>   * How much did we spend in the last few years and on what?
>>    * I know that we payed for some accidental Azure bills and for 
>> Digital Ocean for some months when the sponsoring ended.
>>    * An overview based on categories should be fine. If you already 
>> have to provide something for the tax report that could be sufficient.
>>
>>
>> I have heard some numbers in some meetings, but I have never seen any 
>> email with numbers.
> 
> Thanks for reaching out.  When projects join SFC, we ask the project PLC 
> if they want regular finance updates or on-demand updates -- in 
> OpenWrt's case the latter was chosen (and, as you note, we've been 
> answering questions as they've come up).  We are happy to switch to 
> regular reports if the PLC would like.  In any case, we will be sending 
> the PLC a finance update, per this request, as soon as we work out 
> complexities with some recent transactions (in the next week or two).
> 
> Because the finance update includes confidential information, it will be 
> sent to the PLC directly.  If the PLC wants to use that information to 
> answer the questions you posed above, that is of course fine to do.
> 
> Please do let us know if there are any other questions that we at SFC 
> can answer at any time.  Thanks!
> 
> Denver Gingerich
> Director of Compliance
> Software Freedom Conservancy

Hi Denver,

Thank you for your fast answer.

I was not aware of this regulation, but I have a bad memory about such 
topics.

If you send a finance update to the PLC it would be very nice to get an 
overview. If it takes 4 weeks it should be fine too.

I think it would be nice if you could send this yearly. You are probably 
preparing something for taxes every year, that could be a good time.
What do others think about this?

Hauke