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 <[email protected]>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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