Xfce Foundation status

[Christian Dywan]

Am Wed, 13 Oct 2010 20:42:22 +0200
schrieb Jannis Pohlmann <jannis at xfce.org>:

>   * Do you think all this makes sense? 

Yes. I find this a very good idea.

>   * Does a German e.V. (which is a non-profit organization registered
>     in Germany) sound like a reasonable type of organization for Xfce?

I have forgotten most of the legal details I knew about e.V., so I can
hardly give a good reason, but I think it is a good choice.

>   * Would you prefer "Xfce e.V." or "Xfce Foundation e.V." to be the
>     name of the organization?

When talking about the name, it should be "Xfce" or "Xfce Foundation",
shouldn't it? Outside of formal contexts you wouldn't mention the
"e.V." and usually not in spoken conversation either. So I think that
already makes "Xfce" unattractive.

"Foundation" also seems to be quite common as part of the name
regardless of the concrete legal entity, so it probably is a good
choice as long as there is no German law preventing that.

>   * For how many years do you think the board should be elected? 
>     3, 2 or 1?

More than 1.

>   * There is one clause about where the raised money should go in case
>     the e.V. is abandoned. The KDE people have decided to forward all
>     their money to UNESCO. I have come up with a few alternatives.
>     Which of the following organizations would you prefer the money to
>     be handed over to in case the e.V. is closed?
> 
>       UNESCO, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, WWF or OLPC?

While I would hope this won't be relevant in the near future,
intuitively I would think GNOME Foundation or FSFE makes more sense
than something "random" and unrelated.

> The founding process itself involves a formal meeting in real life
> with at least 7 persons attending. As it seems unrealistic to organize
> such a meeting with Xfce-only people from all around the world before
> the end of the year, I propose that I organize this meeting in
> Lübeck, gathering a few local Xfce users or friends. During this
> meeting they would sign a resolution that says the board of directors
> will be re-elected shortly after the e.V. has been registered. In this
> re-election we can then establish people more deeply involved in Xfce
> as board members. (And we would of course decide not to take money
> from e.V. members, so anyone can become part of the whole thing.)

I think that sounds like a good plan to keep the initial effort low.
Would probably be preferrable to have actual Xfce users there rather
than random participants.

-- 
ciao,
    Christian