Re: KDE U.S. NPO

On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 10:07 AM, Carl Symons <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 6:52 AM, Sune Vuorela <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On 2012-03-09, Myriam Schweingruber <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Indeed. The service provided by the SFC is very expensive and their
>>> responsiveness is not very good (which might be related to their lack
>>> of capacity currently). So if the eV could avoid that it would all the
>>> more benefit us financially.
>>
>>
>> Whattabout seeing what SPI can offer?

> However, it's not clear to me how we would distinguish KDE-US from the
> parent KDE organization.
> Applications to SPI are judged on several merits:
> 1. Free Software: is the project a genuine Free Software community project?
> 2. Substance: Does it have an established development community,
> history of software releases, etc?
> 3. Significance: Is the project used by a broad audience, or does it
> have political or market significance?
> (from http://oldwww.spi-inc.org/treasurer/associated-project-howto.html/)
>
> 1. Pass with flying colors
> 2. If this relates solely to KDE-US, there would be some disagreement.
> There are some U.S. contributors. Potential fail.
> 3. Probably pass. Although we don't have specifics, it is a reasonable
> assumption that there is a large KDE audience in the U.S.


I've sent an inquiry SPI's way and Michael Schultheiss responded:

"""
Thank you for contacting SPI.  [email protected] is the e-mail
address for the SPI Membership Committee which handles membership
registration of individuals interested in joining SPI.  Free and Open
Source projects that are interested in joining SPI go through SPI's
Associated Project process [1]

Depending on what is meant by "American KDE community" (i.e. KDE
developers? KDE interested end-users?), SPI may be interested in working
with you.  Please note that SPI Project Status is for Free and Open
Source projects rather than community organizing (e.g. a Linux Users
Group would not be eligible for SPI Associated Project Status).
"""




> Regarding Substance (2)...maybe fundraising could be intended for
> raising the KDE Community profile in the U.S. But this calls for
> another discussion--what is the money for?
> - Raise money in the U.S. to send to KDE HQ for traditional KDE activities?
> - Pay expenses of U.S. contributors to attend sprints and other KDE
> functions, primarily in Europe?
> - Concentrated U.S. recruitment and marketing program to increase the
> number of users, developers and organizational relationships?
>
> The last _sounds_ good. What's the plan? Is the idea generally that
> we'll raise some money and then figure out what to do with it? What's
> the Big Idea?

I like "concentrated U.S. recruitment and marketing program to
increase the number of users, deverlopers and organizations
relationships" idea. The other reason to form a non-profit is so that
businesses can make tax-deductable contributions to the organization,
whether that is money or other items such as material goods for a
booth. That money could go toward funding sprints, helping to staff
conferences, and generally organization of the community, just like
the parent organization. Not a lot of businesses are going to
contribute to a non-profit overseas if they don't receive a tax break.

It would be ideal to have an umbrella branch to allocate legal risk,
conference money, and brand control in the states. Currently I am only
aware of SFC and SPI which clearly have different goals, and it
doesn't look like either are willing to take on the project.

P.S. sorry for the formatting, having to use the Gmail interface since
I didn't migrate all my previous emails appropriately and its taking
awhile to fetch all the emails up to this point.


-- 
Heath Matlock
+1 256 274 4225

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