Xfce Foundation status

[Florian Rivoal]

>   * Do you think all this makes sense?

Yes, it is a good initiative.

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

Not too familiar with the "German e.V.", only a little bit with the French  
"Association".
I have nothing against e.V. a priori, but I am curious as to why. Is it  
mainly because of convenience of it being German, or are there advantages  
to this type of organization compared to similar structures in different  
countries?

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

If it has no legal significance, Xfce Foundation sounds better.

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

2 years. 1 is too short, and would make us spend too much time on  
campaigning, registering, voting, etc... 3 might be ok, but given that  
Xfce is a volunteer based effort, it is probably important that people are  
not stuck with duties for longer than they can bear.

>   * 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?
>
>     You can of course make your own suggestions if you want to.

While the organizations you list are respectable ones, with the exception  
of the OLPC, they have very little to do with Xfce's purpose, and  
redirecting donors money to unrelated causes, even good ones, doesn't  
sound to good to me. By giving to Xfce, people would be supporting  
software and freedom, so I'd prefer either the Free Software  
Foundation(FSF), or the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

> How does all this sound to you people?

Sounds like a good idea that needs to be though of carefully, because it  
might not be easy to correct after the fact.


One extra question. Are you considering the possibility of copyright  
assignment to the Xfce Foundation? It has pros and cons. The down sides  
are obvious: administrative overhead, and decline in contributions from  
people who are too attached to their code to give it away. Benefits  
include making it much easier to change the license of the code (switch  
 from GPL2 to GPL3, for instance), and making it easier to handle copyright  
lawsuits if they ever happen, because you don't have to go looking for the  
copyright holders. I am not entirely sure which side I am on, but I think  
it is worth thinking about.

  - Florian