Re: [Gimp-developer] Re: [Gimp-user] The GIMP Foundation
On Mar 8, 2004, at 8:25 AM, Kelly Martin wrote: Dave Neary wrote: Daniel Rogers wrote: Avoid self-dealing. What's this? Self-dealing is whenever the people who control the organization command the organization to do business with themselves in their personal capacity. Self-dealing tears the veil and makes the director or officer who engages in it personally liable for the corporation's debt by creating the presumption that the corporation is an alter ego of the individual. In the case of a non-profit, it also violates the rule against private inurement. this is true, but it deals more directly with, as a board member, arranging a deal between The GIMP foundation and a board member. Self-dealing is when, for example, you own some property that you wish to sell to TGF and you are on TGF board. You have to do some full disclousure, follow very specific rules, and making too much money is frowned upon. Really it is not so much about avoidance (but that helps) as much as it is about following the rules. California and the US are very picky about making sure that non-profits are not used as a vehical to profit the board members. It means, inter alia, that the directors of the non-profit cannot also receive money from it except possibly a small stipend and reimbursement of their expenses in attending board meetings and other organization functions. Being a member of the board of a non-profit organization is charity work: you generally cannot expect to get paid. this is not true, actually. 51% of the members have to be disinterested. It means that 51% of the board members cannot themselves or anyone related to them be paid (except the stipend and compensation you mentioned). Related, here, has a very specific definition. It means that if there are four board members, and I am getting paid to hack on gegl by TGF, then none of the other board members can get paid. It also means that if I hire my wife to do some work, then I am interested and no one else (or their relatives) on a four person board can get paid. If you're looking to get a job with the GIMP Foundation, you can't also be a member of its board of directors (except as an ex-officio member, which the Executive Director typically would be). This doesn't mean that the Foundation can't hire staff, just that those staff can't be the ones making the ultimate decisions on how to spend the organization's money. Again, this is _not_ true. More than half must be volunteer though. Staff can recommend, but final approval of at least the general budget has to be by the volunteer board. This bit is true, except that the board must simply be more than half volunteer. To do otherwise risks a finding that the organization inures to the benefit of a private party, which destroys non-profit status. There are of course, other ways to destroy non-profit status, such as getting too much regular funding from a single source. I'm very interested in the idea of a Foundation and would love to be a part of one, but I have no expectation of it turning into a personal revenue stream. Again, if you are a board member, you could get a job with TGF. But seeing how TGF, at this point, is not exactly handing out jobs, I would agree with this sentiment. -- Dan ___ Gimp-user mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] The GIMP Foundation
Daniel Rogers wrote: Avoid self-dealing. What's this? Be honest. Is this true of every board? Even Halliburton? 1. Will TGF have members? I am talking about members with voting privledges, like I described above. (my vote is yes, btw) Yes. 2. Should the membership be paid? (my vote is yes, for like $50 a year or some toher small amount. It helps for tax purposes). Why not - this is also common in France. That means setting up paypal I guess... Although the GNOME foundation have a membership policy which fits in better with the Open Source model - there is a membership committee, which considers applications for membership on a case-by-case basis based on participation in the community. Membership is reconsidered every 3 years, and is free. 3. Should the membership have additional rights? Aside from voting in the board? Meh... It would be useful to know who is interested in accepting the responsibilites of being a board member (or officer). Me. But a board can only work if the developers and the board work together towards the same goals, so to speak. If the board and the developers are in conflict, it'll bomb, or it'll be a PR disaster. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Gimp-user mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] The Gimp Foundation news
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Geoffrey wrote: | It must be different then an S Corp., as it took about 6 months to get | my incorporation paperwork. | It depends on the state and how much you are willing to pay. They have a tiered pay system here in cali. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQE/0mrVad4P1+ZAZk0RAk6aAJ9L7v0dhODgzQ6DGzNK91ezEK6D7ACfWX+L XzIP5mpa5kJVvQmJoqHeKtI= =sHyo -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gimp-user mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] The Gimp Foundation news
Daniel Rogers wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Geoffrey wrote: | It must be different then an S Corp., as it took about 6 months to get | my incorporation paperwork. | It depends on the state and how much you are willing to pay. They have a tiered pay system here in cali. Ah, they do things slower here in the south I've found out. (Georgia...) -- Until later, Geoffrey [EMAIL PROTECTED] Building secure systems inspite of Microsoft ___ Gimp-user mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] The Gimp Foundation
Hi, Daniel Rogers [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: As was discussed at Gimp Con 2003 (and before, frankly) I am in the process of incorporating The GIMP Foundation as a non-profit organization devoted to supporting the gimp. Thanks a lot for organizing this. Here are some of the ideas I am currently mulling over regarding TGF: Selling t-shirts, coffee cups, lapel pins, posters, etc. Selling printed manuals. Selling GPL complient binary and source disributions on cd. Selling and paying people to go train and give presentations on the GIMP. Public and private grants. (someone (like me) will need to apply for these) Tax deductable donations. buying hardware (computers, tablets, scanners, colorimeters). full color magazine ads free training sessions office space accounting legal expenses staff paying programmers, web designers, tech writers constructing a build farm (this would help both developers and in making a cd distribution). This sounds a lot more like an attempt to bring WilberWorks back to life than what I was imaging from such a foundation. IMO it should be a lot less commercially oriented but maybe I am only getting a wrong impression from looking at this list. I don't think a GIMP foundation should share any interests with companies like for example MacGIMP. IMO a foundation should not sell anything. It should serve as a representant of the GIMP developers and it may accept donations (actually that's one of the major points). It should also help to create contacts between the GIMP community and people that seek for advice or need speakers. But IMHO there should be no t-shirts, no printed manuals, no CDs and most importanyly no ads. If someone wants to do this kind of stuff, feel free to found a company and try your luck. Sven ___ Gimp-user mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-developer] Re: [Gimp-user] The Gimp Foundation
* Raphaël Quinet [EMAIL PROTECTED] [10-13-03 07:41]: On 13 Oct 2003 11:55:27 +0200, Sven Neumann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Selling GIMP tee-shirts, manuals, CDs and other stuff may be interesting, but I would prefer to have this done by a company that would be a separate legal entity. Otherwise, there could be some conflicts between a commercial GIMP Foundation and the companies that are already selling GIMP stuff (ftgimp, macgimp/wingimp, xdarwin and probably several others). I would like the GIMP Foundation to be seen as neutral and clearly non-commercial, so that the companies who are selling GIMP CDs could make a donation to the foundation without feeling that they are giving money to a potential competitor. Perhaps the selling of a license (rights) to produce and/or sell items would be an acceptable alternative. -- Patrick ShanahanRegistered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org@ http://counter.li.org ___ Gimp-user mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] The Gimp Foundation
Sven Neumann wrote: This sounds a lot more like an attempt to bring WilberWorks Wilber what? I plead ignorant. back to life than what I was imaging from such a foundation. IMO it should be a lot less commercially oriented but maybe I am only getting a wrong impression from looking at this list. I don't think a GIMP foundation should share any interests with companies like for example MacGIMP. IMO a foundation should not sell anything. It should serve as a representant of the GIMP developers and it may accept donations (actually that's one of the major points). And donations would be one of its major points. However having a reliable source of money, like manual and chachka sales can only help TGF be more helpful. Basically, _anything_ TGF does will cost money. The more money it has, the more helpful things it can do. The FSF foundation, for example, collects membership dues (which are tax deductable donations) and sells tshirts, pins, stickers, posters, manuals, cds, has a corporate patronage program, in addition to seeking out private donations. The gnome foundation at least has tshirts, coffee mugs and the like that it gives to big donators, and is making some kind of noise about setting up a store. The mozilla foundation doesn't have these things, but I am willing to bet that they will in the future. Essentially, I can't run this thing forever, for free. There needs to be some way of making enough money to reliably pay for things like filing fees. Besides, people are more willing to donate money if we can give them something for the donation. As for being a representative of the GIMP developers, I think this should be TGF's primary responsibility. However, doing that also costs money. There are phone bills, mailing costs, travel costs, gas costs, my accounting is _almost_ free but will still cost something (and accounting is important to keep our tax-exempt status). It should also help to create contacts between the GIMP community and people that seek for advice or need speakers. But IMHO there should be no t-shirts, no printed manuals, no CDs and most importanyly no ads. If someone wants to do this kind of stuff, feel free to found a company and try your luck. Yes. I hope I haven't mislead people into thinking I am trying to start some kind of commerical venture. Believe me, I am not. However, I am trying to think of as many ways as possible to be as helpful as possible to the gimp community. All of these things require money. Paying for things like the next GimpCon, and making presentations happen are some of the best ways I can come up with to help the Gimp Community. I want to do these things. If I am doing these things, then I feel TGF is being successful. However to be able to do these things we need money. The more money we have, the more successful I feel running TGF. As far as printed manuals go, I think they are important. I really like printed documentation (it is waay better than online documentation) and I think printed manuals go a long ways toward encouraging people to use (and thus donate to!) the gimp. Binary packages are in this same vein, but, I think, less important, since distros (and Tor) will prepare packages for us. -- Dan [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Gimp-user mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-developer] Re: [Gimp-user] The Gimp Foundation
On 13 Oct 2003 11:55:27 +0200, Sven Neumann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Daniel Rogers [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: As was discussed at Gimp Con 2003 (and before, frankly) I am in the process of incorporating The GIMP Foundation as a non-profit organization devoted to supporting the gimp. Thanks a lot for organizing this. Here are some of the ideas I am currently mulling over regarding TGF: [...] This sounds a lot more like an attempt to bring WilberWorks back to life than what I was imaging from such a foundation. IMO it should be a lot less commercially oriented but maybe I am only getting a wrong impression from looking at this list. [...] Sorry if this sounds like a me too but I would like to second this. After watching your (Daniel) presentation at GimpCon2003 and the discussion that followed, I thought that the main roles of the GIMP Foundation would be: - to be a non-profit organization that can collect donations without trying to sell anything by itself; - to serve as a contact point for conferences and events interested in GIMP presentations. Selling GIMP tee-shirts, manuals, CDs and other stuff may be interesting, but I would prefer to have this done by a company that would be a separate legal entity. Otherwise, there could be some conflicts between a commercial GIMP Foundation and the companies that are already selling GIMP stuff (ftgimp, macgimp/wingimp, xdarwin and probably several others). I would like the GIMP Foundation to be seen as neutral and clearly non-commercial, so that the companies who are selling GIMP CDs could make a donation to the foundation without feeling that they are giving money to a potential competitor. -Raphaël ___ Gimp-user mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] The Gimp Foundation
Hi, Daniel Rogers [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Sven Neumann wrote: This sounds a lot more like an attempt to bring WilberWorks Wilber what? I plead ignorant. Oh well, one should really run one's own internet archive. The website seems bought off and of course not much is left to be found on google and friends. This is the best link I could find: http://linux.rice.edu/webmap/appdescriptions/WilberWorks.html Let's hope one of the folks involved into this can tell us more about the goals of WilberWorks and why it didn't work (that well). Perhaps there are things we can learn from it... And donations would be one of its major points. However having a reliable source of money, like manual and chachka sales can only help TGF be more helpful. Basically, _anything_ TGF does will cost money. The more money it has, the more helpful things it can do. If you put it that way (with all the other things you said in your reply) it feels a lot better already. Sven ___ Gimp-user mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] The Gimp Foundation
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Sven Neumann wrote: | Thanks a lot for organizing this. you're welcome. - -- Dan -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQE/i3VQad4P1+ZAZk0RAoP7AJ9DMaylrJB3h6Snuw3O6SFEM32P0gCfYpMx A8vbP5we4CIVmcEo4YjiRUc= =D2ll -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gimp-user mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
