On 9 Jun 2011, at 23:06, Robert Derman wrote:
> Volker Merschmann wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> 2011/6/9 Simon Brouwer <[email protected]>:
>>
>>
>>> Suppose Oracle had considered donating the OpenOffice.org trademarks and
>>> copyrights to TDF. How could it be the recipient of such a donation if it
>>> didn't exist as a legal entity?
>>>
>>>
>> I'm feeling it's the hundredth time it is told: The german association
>> "Freies Office Deutschland e.V." is the legal represantive for the TDF
>> until the legal act of founding has happened. And the latter one is
>> not so easy to do.
>>
>> Volker
>>
> My Deutsch isn't the best, I am guessing that the literal translation of the
> above is Freedom Office Germany e.V. whatever the e. V. stands for. Anyway a
> non legaleze explanation of what is happening and what must happen for TDF to
> be a full official foundation would be appreciated.
I'll try to explain as I understand it.
Disclaimer:
I just an ordinary TDF member, not on the Board and with no official standing.
This is just the view I have gained by reading the mailing list and wiki. I am
English and have limited German skills, so this may contain errors and I
welcome corrections.
Summary:
There is already "a full official foundation" involved - FrODeV - with
LibreOffice effectively one of its projects, but its mission statement is more
general than just LibreOffice so it is in the process of spinning out a new
entity to look after LibreOffice.
Detail:
There is already a non-profit in existence; it's name is "Freies Office
Deutschland e.V." ("eV" is a German suffix a bit like "Ltd" or "Inc"), but it's
easier to call it FrODeV for short[1]. It is a fully-functional German
non-profit with bylaws[2], accounts[3] and everything. It has existed for a
number of years and exists to support and promote open source office suites.
It used to be called OpenOffice.org Deutschland eV but changed its name[1] when
the LibreOffice project started so its scope was clearly all open source office
suites. FrODeV has been running a separate asset pool[4] for LibreOffice, and
has expressed its intent to spin out a new, capital-backed non-profit
organisation to look after that asset pool.
To do that, FrODeV needs a set of voting members, an elected Board, a set of
bylaws and a capital sum in the asset pool. Once it has all those, it can
incorporate the new entity and spin it out. So a timeline of that process looks
like this:
1. FrODeV starts the process of hosting TDF with the intent of it being an
incorporated capital-holding non-profit foundation in Germany (Stiftung)
2. A Steering Committee is appointed to handle TDF's affairs, under the
oversight of FrODeV
3. The necessary capital sum is obtained from donors
4. Bylaws are devised
5. A membership is identified according to the bylaws
6. The membership elects a Board of Directors
7. FrODeV incorporates the Stiftung, as "Stifter" (founder/donor).
8. TDF now exists as a legal entity independent of FrODeV
The process has reached stage 5, and stage 6 is imminent. There has been and as
far as I can tell will never be a point in this process where there is no "full
official foundation" in existence.
Hope that helps,
S.
Google Translate[5] works well for these links:
[1] http://www.frodev.org/
[2] http://www.frodev.org/satzung
[3] http://www.frodev.org/downloads-1
[4] http://www.frodev.org/spenden (at the bottom)
[5] http://translate.google.com/
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