Long-term lending of hardware for contributors

raito commented

2025-08-19 19:29:23 +00:00

Owner

@jade from the Lix team asked us to consider how we could enable long-term lending of hardware for contributors, e.g. a Mac Mini for a Lix contributor.

This requires investigation on the AFNix board to determine:

(a) Figuring out the contract model and the legal context of such a thing, esp. for non-profits
(b) MDM (pre-)provisioning arrangement (owner: @raito)
(c) If donation happens as money, how much it needs to be and how to issue a donation receipt
(d) Logistics to send/retrieve HW and the efforts

@thubrecht If you feel like you'd like to answer to some of these questions (except for (b)) I guess, let us know.

@jade from the Lix team asked us to consider how we could enable long-term lending of hardware for contributors, e.g. a Mac Mini for a Lix contributor. This requires investigation on the AFNix board to determine: (a) Figuring out the contract model and the legal context of such a thing, esp. for non-profits (b) MDM (pre-)provisioning arrangement (owner: @raito) (c) If donation happens as money, how much it needs to be and how to issue a donation receipt (d) Logistics to send/retrieve HW and the efforts @thubrecht If you feel like you'd like to answer to some of these questions (except for (b)) I guess, let us know.

delroth commented

2025-08-19 20:08:01 +00:00

Owner

A few random thoughts on the topic:

Contract

I feel like basically what we need is something that says the following:

~~We lend you this hardware with no set time limit.~~ EDIT: jade mentioned the following which imo is better: "one suggestion was to have it on a renewable term by default e.g. 1 year. which reduces a little bit possible social problems of 'how do you deal with ppl not having had time to work on it for a while and where do you put a threshold'"
This hardware is lent to you with the aim that you contribute to XXX project thanks to it. If you are not able to do so anymore, please return it.
We do not set limits on how you use this hardware, and you do so at your own responsibility (as in: we are not responsible if you do something dumb with it).
We do not provide a warranty or maintenance for this hardware, and a replacement is not guaranteed.
We reserve the right to yank the hardware back at any time. We cover return shipping in the case this needs to happen. We do not reimburse for the time and other induced costs (e.g. transportation to/from a post office).
Hardware failure does not invalidate this contract, we might still want the hardware shipped back, or disposal needs to be arranged in coordination with AFNix. (This is in part to prevent the possibility of theft by claiming "oh, it stopped working, I promise, so I 'got rid of it'").

Donations

We've discussed this in the past, we need a way to track those (if we assign a monetary value to these things, we can maybe just track via OpenCollective?), we need a way to issue donation receipts (both for monetary and in-kind, I think?).

Inventory

This is also a good case for having a centralized inventory of our assets, which we currently don't have. Such an inventory will need to have a notion of "lent to someone" - in which case we don't really have it available immediately but it's still accounted to us.

A few random thoughts on the topic: ## Contract I feel like basically what we need is something that says the following: 1. ~~We lend you this hardware with no set time limit.~~ EDIT: jade mentioned the following which imo is better: "one suggestion was to have it on a renewable term by default e.g. 1 year. which reduces a little bit possible social problems of 'how do you deal with ppl not having had time to work on it for a while and where do you put a threshold'" 2. This hardware is lent to you with the aim that you contribute to XXX project thanks to it. If you are not able to do so anymore, please return it. 2. We do not set limits on how you use this hardware, and you do so at your own responsibility (as in: we are not responsible if you do something dumb with it). 3. We do not provide a warranty or maintenance for this hardware, and a replacement is not guaranteed. 4. We reserve the right to yank the hardware back at any time. We cover return shipping in the case this needs to happen. We do not reimburse for the time and other induced costs (e.g. transportation to/from a post office). 5. Hardware failure does not invalidate this contract, we might still want the hardware shipped back, or disposal needs to be arranged in coordination with AFNix. (This is in part to prevent the possibility of theft by claiming "oh, it stopped working, I promise, so I 'got rid of it'"). ## Donations We've discussed this in the past, we need a way to track those (if we assign a monetary value to these things, we can maybe just track via OpenCollective?), we need a way to issue donation receipts (both for monetary and in-kind, I think?). ## Inventory This is also a good case for having a centralized inventory of our assets, which we currently don't have. Such an inventory will need to have a notion of "lent to someone" - in which case we don't really have it available immediately but it's still accounted to us.

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jade commented

2025-08-19 20:44:17 +00:00

Some stuff discussed with friends:

Make sure you cover who pays for shipping, who/how compensation is done if it is damaged, or damaged in shipping, who actually owns it, etc

this is covered by delroth's suggestions which sound about like what i would expect. it's owned by the association so the taxes work out better for everyone involved (and because straight up giving people hardware with no strings as a gift sounds potentially problematic as a nonprofit and possibly socially a problem also).

shipping should always be paid for by the association imo. damage, idk, i think the "we aren't promising to replace it so like, if you break it that sucks for you and we get it back" avoids any reason to do deliberate damage.

maybe "please keep the original apple box".

"after how many months of them not using the laptop do we ask for it back"

one suggestion was to have it on a renewable term by default e.g. 1 year. which reduces a little bit possible social problems of "how do you deal with ppl not having had time to work on it for a while and where do you put a threshold". and i think that if we have an automatic default number where it's re-evaluated that sounds reasonable enough to avoid stressing anyone out too much.

we might also want to mention in the wording that it is under MDM of the organization, but that this isn't intended as anything but a measure to make sure Find My doesn't brick it and as part of asserting clear legal ownership over the device. we don't intend to deploy meaningful policy on it other than simply owning it (and maybe a "property of" lock screen message).

devices are likely to be Complicated tax-wise or so to have cross borders. fortunately we can probably just care about EU for now and then if we have other areas we can deal with them as the need arises (which would only matter for return as ideally we prefer to drop ship from apple or etc).

and with those comments i think we're all on the same page about how we can do this.

Some stuff discussed with friends: > Make sure you cover who pays for shipping, who/how compensation is done if it is damaged, or damaged in shipping, who actually owns it, etc this is covered by delroth's suggestions which sound about like what i would expect. it's owned by the association so the taxes work out better for everyone involved (and because straight up giving people hardware with no strings as a gift sounds potentially problematic as a nonprofit and possibly socially a problem also). shipping should always be paid for by the association imo. damage, idk, i think the "we aren't promising to replace it so like, if you break it that sucks for you and we get it back" avoids any reason to do deliberate damage. maybe "please keep the original apple box". > "after how many months of them not using the laptop do we ask for it back" one suggestion was to have it on a renewable term by default e.g. 1 year. which reduces a little bit possible social problems of "how do you deal with ppl not having had time to work on it for a while and where do you put a threshold". and i think that if we have an automatic default number where it's re-evaluated that sounds reasonable enough to avoid stressing anyone out too much. --- we might also want to mention in the wording that it is under MDM of the organization, but that this isn't intended as anything but a measure to make sure Find My doesn't brick it and as part of asserting clear legal ownership over the device. we don't intend to deploy meaningful policy on it other than simply owning it (and maybe a "property of" lock screen message). --- devices are likely to be Complicated tax-wise or so to have cross borders. fortunately we can probably just care about EU for now and then if we have other areas we can deal with them as the need arises (which would only matter for return as ideally we prefer to drop ship from apple or etc). --- and with those comments i think we're all on the same page about how we can do this.

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thubrecht commented

2025-08-21 13:14:06 +00:00

Owner

For donations receipts, we have https://www.impots.gouv.fr/formulaire/2041-rd/recu-des-dons-et-versements-effectues-par-les-particuliers-au-titre-des-articles

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Long-term lending of hardware for contributors #23

Contract

Donations

Inventory