Thomas Dukleth wrote:
The Conservancy has no voting or membership fee and project affiliation does not extend to voting on conservancy policies. The Conservancy is run by many of the same people who run the Software Freedom Law Center who have as old and as trustworthy a standing in supporting free software as anyone and running FSF.
Conservancy projects run themselves and determine their own voting procedures. The Conservancy provides the non-profit status and other legal necessities so that the project can accept donations, etc.
So, SFC seems about as unaccountable to users and developers as the FSF. Slightly worse in fact: I think FSF have associates and fellows who sit on advisory groups that are consulted by the unelected board. SFC is a much younger organisation than FSF, but presumably it could also press on in a similar way (ignoring many user and developer questions) as long as it gets enough donations to sustain its basic administration. I think that's a bit worrying and asking us to take more on trust than we ought to, especially with a four-year-old opaque org. After all, like the sign by my prof's office said: in God we Trust - all others bring data. Is there data about the relative performance of member-led organisations and trust-style self-perpetuating groups? I suspect it depends how you measure performance, but maybe someone knows. [...]
http://www.spi-inc.org/treasurer/associated-project-howto.html . "Your Liaison may decide that your project is quitting SPI at any time. Any assets and money held by SPI for your project may be transferred to the 501(c)3 US non-profit of your choice, or simply held until expended." Perhaps that is a legal constraint in the US for 501(c)3 organisations.
I think I've been told that it is, but I have no reference for it.
MJ, would you please try to obtain an answer from SPI about what possibility there is for transferring assets to a non-US organisation when a project would leave SPI?
I sent a request which should appear soon on the page http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.org.spi.general with any replies or comments linked from there, probably at http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.spi.general/917 Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef) LMS developer and webmaster at | software www.software.coop http://mjr.towers.org.uk | .... co IMO only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html | .... op