Re: SFC, GNOME Foundation (WAS Re: Meeting Minutes Published - February 1st, 2011)
Hi all, Thanks for the feedback and I apologize for not responding sooner. We are currently looking into possible solutions - personally, I agree with Dave and Stormy's comments that GNOME should offer these services. We are looking into what the legal liability protection requirements are. Bradley has been great in sharing information of the services the SFC provides and how much work goes into them. In evaluating handling money for projects within GNOME, one concern is the number of projects that might be interested in doing this as the accounting work is time intensive. Stormy said above: 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. That part is a bit tricky as we want to be fair to all projects and, if we go in this direction, we need to make sure we have criteria in place to manage that. Paul On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 6:57 PM, vas...@softwarefreedom.org wrote: Bradley Kuhn can probably speak to this better than I can, but I want to note that to do the Conservancy right is a lot of work, depending on how active your member projects are. If GNOME decides to go down this path, I highly recommend you take Bradley out to dinner (he can be bribed with burritos) and get a feel for the scope of this endeavor. For another look at how this can be approached, you might also talk to Software in the Public Interest. I don't think either SFC or SPI will be stingy with information. Best Regards, James ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: SFC, GNOME Foundation (WAS Re: Meeting Minutes Published - February 1st, 2011)
Bradley Kuhn can probably speak to this better than I can, but I want to note that to do the Conservancy right is a lot of work, depending on how active your member projects are. If GNOME decides to go down this path, I highly recommend you take Bradley out to dinner (he can be bribed with burritos) and get a feel for the scope of this endeavor. For another look at how this can be approached, you might also talk to Software in the Public Interest. I don't think either SFC or SPI will be stingy with information. Best Regards, James ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
SFC, GNOME Foundation (WAS Re: Meeting Minutes Published - February 1st, 2011)
Thanks, Brian, for the additional detail. On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 2:29 PM, Brian Cameron brian.came...@oracle.comwrote: * 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 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: SFC, GNOME Foundation (WAS Re: Meeting Minutes Published - February 1st, 2011)
Le vendredi 18 février 2011, à 10:24 -0700, Stormy Peters a écrit : I think we should be willing to do for GNOME projects what the SFC does for their projects. Big +1. That's one of the goals of the Foundation, imho; and as Stormy points out, we already do that for some projects. Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: SFC, GNOME Foundation (WAS Re: Meeting Minutes Published - February 1st, 2011)
Hi, Vincent Untz wrote: Le vendredi 18 février 2011, à 10:24 -0700, Stormy Peters a écrit : I think we should be willing to do for GNOME projects what the SFC does for their projects. Big +1. That's one of the goals of the Foundation, imho; and as Stormy points out, we already do that for some projects. ...including some projects which are not GNOME projects, like GIMP the Libre Graphics Meeting. I concur with the very wise Stormy Vincent. The foundation should be providing services like this to our projects. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
