[kde-usa] KDE U.S. NPO

[Jeff Mitchell]

On 5/9/2012 3:07 PM, Steve Hay wrote:
> Just some thoughts, as a newcomer here:
> 
> It sounds like there are four possibilities which have not been ruled
> out: (1) ASF, (2) SPI, (3) SFC, (4) no sponsor

No, this is not true. (1) is very unlikely since we don't really fit
into the goals of the Apache foundation and their incubation program.
Doesn't mean it couldn't happen, but it probably would be an odd fit.
(4) has effectively been ruled out since the research we have done so
far has shown that our funding would not be diverse enough to allow us
to qualify (and stay qualified) under IRS regulations. And there should
be a (5) which is "other umbrella organizations" since no others have
been ruled out.

> From here, one
> possibility is to downselect and further investigate a subset of these
> options. (It sounds like Jeff has done this in the past. He
> downselected to SFC on the basis of patent protection and provided a
> proposal to the Board.)

This assumption is not correct. SFC was never downselected. Many years
ago when I first got dialogues going with the SFC, they did not charge
any money, they were rather excited to have KDE along since it was such
a large project so were interested in working closely with us, and they
provided the patent indemnification as a bonus. As another large bonus,
they were (and I think still are) affiliated with the Software Freedom
Law Center, so they could provide legal services in case of any trouble
(which the SFLC does for non-SFC projects but it would have made it
easier because things would be "in-house").

Over the years things got delayed repeatedly due to various factors,
which I can list, but won't right now for brevity. The fault lays on
both the SFC and the Board's side for that, although mostly the SFC for
endless delays due to internal reasons.

> However, it sounds like the Board prefers to
> have a more explicit comparison of the options.

There's not really much to compare. The others are mostly alike, except
that I don't know of any others that provide patent indemnification or
the same kind of path to legal help. However, now that the SFC mandates
fees (which some of the other umbrella orgs, such as SPI, reserve the
right to do), that upsets the equation somewhat.

> What about putting
> together an analysis of all four options and make a recommendation
> from that?

I don't see the point. The question to the Board will still be the same:
do they want to (essentially) pay for the patent protection from the
SFC, or not? The path afterwards is relatively easy regardless of the
answer, but is entirely dependent on the answer.

--Jeff

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 260 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-usa/attachments/20120509/59ac4525/attachment.sig>