Project Governance

[Bart Cerneels]

On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 7:29 PM, Ian Monroe <ian at monroe.nu> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 9:16 AM, Sven Krohlas <sven at asbest-online.de> wrote:
>  > Hi,
>  >
>  >  finally we have an open discussion about this and I don't have to hear
>  >  that stuff second hand as I'm not always on irc.
>
>  Yea we have "closed discussions" about sending proposals to the list.
>  I'm sorry this was such a burden on you.
>
>
>  >  Some suggestions:
>  >
>  >  §6: let's define how long everyone has time to decide on the vote. Maybe
>  >  one week? So nearly everyone would be able to cast his ballot, even when
>  >  you're away for some time.
>  >  Maybe it would be possible to stop the vote earlier iff the result is
>  >  already clear from a mathematical point of view?
>
>  Well Greg's idea is to just have it done in IRC. I think this better
>  fits with our current consensus style of making decisions. Perhaps as
>  a backup if quorum can't be reached we could have it over email.
>
>
>  >  §2:
>  >  There was the idea to create an "e.V." ("registered voluntary association",
>  >  as KDE has one) in Germany to support Amarok.
>  >  Currently I'm about to find the steps that are necessary to create one
>  >  (well, that is easy) and how the articles of the association have to look
>  >  like so that we get accepted non-commercial by the finance office so
>  >  donations would be tax deductible (that's the hard part).
>
>  At least in the US being tax deductible is a large hassle and results
>  in a lot of extra oversight. Unless you're a Church of course ;).
>  Given our smallish budget and contributions, I don't think it would be
>  worth it, I honestly don't think many of our contributors are
>  disappointed they can't write off their contribution.
>
>  But perhaps we would need to be non-profit/e.V if at some point our
>  budget gets large enough that the Amarok Project would need to pay
>  taxes on money it raises. Obviously we don't want that. Could you
>  comment on this Greg?
>
>
>  >  Once we would agree on that I guess we have much less costs because of money
>  >  transfer as bank transfers inside the EU are completely for free.
>  >  I also think that this would lead to much more donations from Europe, as here
>  >  free software is very strong but only a few people use Paypal but everybody
>  >  does bank transfers.
I do also think that this lowers the risk of contributing for many
people in Europe. An EU bank transfer is really trivial in this age of
online banking.
For a similar reason I'm in the process of setting up a bank account
for Akademy. Mainly for hostel payments. But we'll still have paypal
for credit card and non EU payments.
>
>  I've asked HSBC about setting something up where we could have a
>  linked bank account on both sides of the Atlantic. It'd be ideal, but
>  this service might not actually exist (Greg was saying that
>  international banks like HSBC are sometimes just confederations of
>  local banks). But anyways we don't need to be incorporated to have a
>  bank account. Greg has a separate savings account for Amarok, we could
>  have something like this in Europe too (maybe, assuming they have
>  similar rules for unincorporated entities).
I can not imagine that to be without a significant cost. I would
prefer 2 bank accounts really, one on each side of the pond and maybe
even more in the future, who knows.
>
>
>  >  But, well, that's still in the state of an idea. Maybe in a few weeks I can
>  >  tell everyone more about it and afterwards we can decide if we want to do that.
>  >  But if anyone is really against creating an e.V. please stand up now so that
>  >  I don't waste my time. :)
I'm all for it. You should also consider that an e.V. would reduce the
financial liability for the person managing the account. I do think
though that this would limit at least the European treasurer to be a
resident of Germany.
>
>  Please look into incorporating in Europe, but look at the range of
>  corporation types, maybe e.V isn't the best for us. And regardless it
>  would be good for us to go ahead with these unincorporated rules,
>  since incorporation will likely take some time. And having existing
>  structure would probably help us to incorporate in the future.
There is even a European level non-profit, although I think that might
be a bit out of our league.

Bart