Greetings!
I visited the Finnish Patents and Registration
bureau today, and discussed our nonprofit plans
with one of their lawyers.
It seems that there are no problems with the plans.
However, there are some points we need to keep
in mind:
They have no problems with The Midgard Project
being the organization name. They wouldn't accept
it if it were an English translation of the
organization's Finnish name, but if it is the
only name then it is ok.
Half of the board members need to be living in
Finland, as does the chairman. If we want to
except from this law point, we can request
permission from the Ministry of Trade and
Industry.
The official version of the organization rules
must be in Finnish. We can make an unofficial
English translation ourselves, which can then
be made official by having it checked by a
professional translator.
Board meetings can be held over phone or Internet,
and the meeting minutes and other documents can
be in English. However, if we want official
documents for dealing with instances here in
Finland, those may need to be in Finnish.
The organization meetings (for all members,
where the board is nominated and accounts
checked) must however be attended in person.
(So these could be held during developer meetings
or workshops).
I also checked whether the bureau has problems
with a nonprofit owning large amounts of property
(thinking about current software valuations, the
Midgard core library copyrights could be seen
as very valuable), and it seems that there are
no problems here, as long as we don't seek making
profit with it.
Anyway, I think those were the key points I wanted
to check there, if you have any questions about
the proceedings, please let me know.
As an initial plan, we intend to hold the founding
meeting on 18:00, April 7th in either somewhere
in Helsinki or at Stonesoft's offices in Espoo. I'll
let you know when the place has been decided. Anyone
who is interested in attending is welcome to do
so.
Until next Tuesday,
/Bergie
--
-- Henri Bergius -- +358 40 525 1334 -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] --
http://www.iki.fi/Henri.Bergius
--
This is The Midgard Project's mailing list. For more information,
please visit the project's web site at http://www.midgard-project.org
To unsubscribe the list, send an empty email message to address
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
