> The bottom line is that Anki's lawyers messed up.

Anki and Ankidroid are not the same entity and they have different owners, if you want to call it that.

Anki is owned by Nicholas Flint, a physician who sells med school-related decks online under the name AnKing, which controls Ankihub, which now controls Anki after the original founder (Damien Elmes) gave them control about six months ago.

Ankidroid is a non-profit project that arose when there was only an iPhone mobile version of Anki. Completely unrelated to Anki except that it was blessed by the original creator of Anki.

It's also just some nerd programmers who ported Anki to run on Android. It's not some org with a revenue stream and attorneys.

> Obviously we're all reading this expecting that Anki is a 501(c)(3) charity

No, no one is reading it thinking that Anki is a charity.

Anyway, when you are going to harp on about HN not caring about the minutiae of tax policy, you should make sure you understand that you're talking about two unrelated entities run by different people as if they were the same entity.

> Anki and Ankidroid are not the same entity

So... why is one soliciting donations on behalf of the other?! My Fraud Meter is rising, not falling here.

> It's also just some nerd programmers who ported Anki to run on Android. It's not some org with a revenue stream and attorneys.

"Just Some Nerd Programmers" don't, very obviously, have standing to solicit tax exempt donations. Rising further still...

I think a lot of people here are operating on the assumption that apps have the inherent right to ask for money on a proprietary platform that gives them a monetization path. They don't, on any such platform, and never have. There are specific carveouts allowed by the platform vendors for cases we all agree are valuable, like charitable donations. It's just really clear that Anki is playing games here and frankly I really doubt they qualify.