Thanks, Brian, for the additional detail. On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 2:29 PM, Brian Cameron <brian.came...@oracle.com>wrote:
> > > * Orca / Software Freedom Conservancy >> o Discussions underway. The SFC is working to determine if it >> is possible for GNOME projects to join the SFC. >> o ACTION: Bastien will email Joanie about options about >> whether it makes sense for orca to consider being a >> FreeDesktop project. >> >> What would be the advantage for GNOME projects to join the SFC? I >> thought the GNOME Foundation provided all the services that SFC does. >> (I'm not opposed to the idea, just would like to understand why the >> projects want to.) >> > > I think their website explains the benefits: > > http://sfconservancy.org/overview/ > http://sfconservancy.org/members/services/ > http://sfconservancy.org/members/apply/ > > The main benefits seem to be that they will help your project take care > of finances/fundraising, and they also provide some protection against > liabilities. The above website provides more details. > > So far, we have just had some discussions with the folks at Conservancy > about whether it makes sense for GNOME projects to be a part of > Conservancy. That said, it is not yet clear if the Conservancy will > accept GNOME projects. We are waiting to find out from them if it is > even an option. > > I believe that the orca project is interested in using Conservancy to > accept donations targeting the orca project. > > There has been some discussion amongst the board about whether it might > make sense to allow people to make GNOME a11y donations via Friends of > GNOME or otherwise handle this within The GNOME community. However, > some people (e.g. the marketing team) has concerns that if we open the > door to allowing specific GNOME subgroups or projects to receive > earmarked funds that this would or could spiral out of control, or make > FoG too complicated. > I think we should be willing to do for GNOME projects what the SFC does for their projects. The money issue is probably a tracking issue more than anything else. We could mange that by limiting the number of projects. We could put criteria around what it means to be a project to ensure that it's a long lasting and well managed entity before we agreed to handle its finances. I know the SFC has a process for that. We already manage funds for several projects, including a11y. We could add a few things to make the process easier. Ideas (not necessarily good ones at this point) include creating a private wiki page for each project with accounting of their money so everyone is on the same page, creating a more public version of gnucash file, finding a private place we can check the gnucash file in so it doesn't have to be forwarded around, etc. > > But, even if we supported receiving a11y funds via some GNOME Foundation > mechanism, I think Joanie is still interested in having orca join the > Conservancy if possible since she has indicated that she is very > interested in the liability protection that they offer. > > There has been some discussion about whether The GNOME Foundation could > provide similar protections, but I believe that their liability > protection is possible because of the way their organization is > structured. For example, they require that all project funds be > managed centrally by them. I am not sure it would be practical or > possible for The GNOME Foundation to require this of all GNOME modules. > Would we have to do it for all GNOME modules or just the projects that had asked us to hold their money for them? Stormy
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