A Clarifying Question

One likely recipient of support from the Giving Program asked the following important question (I have edited the exact wording to place it in better context):

“Just to be sure, Mozilla will support contributors by lending things like hardware to volunteers. You will then treat all this as a business expense, alleviating any tax expense and making it (effectively) free of charge for me? And, does this mean that I now have any special responsibilities (besides being a volunteer for the Mozilla Project)? I just ask because I have never participated in such Community Giving Program and this is all new for me.”

Answer: We are creating a community giving program to support the Mozilla community and to try to remove any barriers that contributors might face. We are covering all bases to ensure that there will be little to no tax liability or any other obligations contributors are required to meet. Also, the support we send out is meant to help those people continue to be productive contributors to their aspect of the Mozilla project. We are not signing up anyone up to any contract or required work effort. If we send out hardware, we will track it and we will ask for it to be returned to Mozilla if it is not used to work primarily on Mozilla-related projects. I will add this to the FAQ section of this blog.

In all likelihood, we will announce this week some specific purchases we have made to support the community.