Hi Fellow LUVvers, I've been following traffic about the proposed disincorporation of LUV, and I'd like to add my own views to the discussion -- just as a member of LUV, *not* in any official capacity as being on the committee.
First up, let me state my position, so you know where I'm coming from: Personally, I'm not in favor of disincorporation at the moment. I'm not locked into that view. I can see that there are some good reasons for disincorporating, but so far I don't think they're strong enough to make the change. Second, I want to make clear that I think disincorporation is an issue on which reasonable people, who care about LUV, can come to different conclusions. We all want to advance the interests of LUV and Linux, but might have different opinions about how best to achieve that. Third, I want to dispel any apocalyptic notions that disincorporation would mean the End Of LUV As We Know It. All the activities of LUV could, and probably would, continue much as they are now -- meetings, mailing lists, etc. They'd be on a different legal basis, though. Now we do it as an independent association incorporated in Victoria. If we disincorporated, it would be as a subcommittee of Linux Australia (which as I understand it is an association incorporated in NSW -- henceforth "LA"). And, while it happened before my time, and I'll have to rely on the memories of more senior members, LUV did exist and function before it was incorporated as LUV Inc. Even though I'm personally opposed to disincorporation, I mention the above because I think members should base their decisions on the real issues, not on exaggerated fears. Having laid that groundwork, I'd like to lay out what I think: I guess my fundamental reason for opposing disincorporation is from being a Federalist at heart -- having a strong belief that things work better when power is distributed, and when decisions are made close to where they matter. Now we have a legal basis for our autonomy. If we did disincorporate and became a subcommittee of LA, we would loose the legal basis for that autonomy. I believe that LA and its people are reasonable, and I expect that we as LUV would be left to run our local affairs much as we do now. However, I can't put out of my mind the worry that some way down the track, LA collectively might make decisions that we as LUV don't want, and we'd then have no basis for objecting, since LUV then would just be a creature of LA. That's a pretty unlikely scenario, but still it worries me. Sure, if we as "Linux users in Victoria", ended up extremely unhappy with being just a subcommittee of LA, we could vote with our feet and set up some separate structure (which might even be incorporated). But by then we would have lost the rights to the luv.asn.au domain, and I expect also to the Linux Users of Victoria name. It's very hard to unscramble the egg. Sure there are some practical advantages to merging with LA. We'd be spared the adminstrative overhead of being a separate incorporated association, and would likely have savings in insurance. But that adminstrative overhead is not all that much work for the LUV committee (except around AGM time), and all up I don't think those relatively small practical advantages outweigh the loss of real autonomy. It's been said that disincorporation would facilitate cooperation with LA (since we would be LA). And I guess there's some truth in that. But really we can still cooperate effectively with LA as an independent organization -- as we do now to varying degrees with LA, and with other like-minded groups like Free Software Melbourne, MLUG, etc. In fact, this discussion has reminded me that perhaps we need to be a bit more active about these collaborations. About sponsorship: it seems that there's no reason why sponsorships to LUV Inc. could not continue as targetted sponsorship to LUV as subcommittee of LA, even though it might go to a different bank account. So there probably wouldn't be any immediate practical change to that. And it's even conceivable that being part of LA would open up other sources of sponsorship. But I don't think that possibility is enough to outweigh the loss of real autonomy. And one final comment: If we stay as we are, as LUV Inc., then there's nothing to stop us from revisiting the issue further down the track -- when reasons for formally merging with LA might be more compelling. But if we do disincorporate and become a subcommittee of LUV, going back, while not impossible, would be very very difficult. Like I said, it's very hard to unscramble the egg. I guess what I'm saying is that, because it is largely irreversible, we should hold off changing unless we're really certain it is the best thing to do. Well, those are my personal opinions. I hope they've made some useful contribution to the discussion. -- Smiles, Les. _______________________________________________ luv-main mailing list [email protected] http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-main
