On Friday 19 of February 2021 18:13:04 Mike Bird via tde-users wrote: > 0. "Legislation" in English refers to laws enacted e.g. by the EU or > national, regional, or local governments. I think what you're > talking about is a legal entity such as a partnership, association, > club, society, or nonprofit corporation. > What I mentioned as option 3. I assumed some form of non-profit organization. In this option 0. you mean something different than I thought in option 3.? > > 1. Fiscal host ... e.g. OpenCollective. > > OpenCollective itself is not a Fiscal Host. It looks like a > potentially useful tool if you don't want to work directly with > Stripe. You either need a bank account or a Fiscal Host. > > Open Collective Europe is such a Fiscal Host but it doesn't do legal > so you're maybe not getting much for your admin fee. > Yes, here I was a little inaccurate in the description - OpenCollective is a platform and Open Source Collective (for the US) and Open Collective Europe (for the EU) are the fiscal hosts I had in mind when I mentioned the choice between the US and the EU. As I mentioned, these fiscal hosts only provide fund management and legal status in terms of tax returns. > > 2a. A company that focuses on providing legal status - sfconservancy > > Speaking here from USA I'd be very concerned about getting tied into > the US legal system - or China's or Russia's or India's. The EU is > not perfect but you're in the EU and the EU is less awful than some > of the other big players so I would suggest trying to keep your legal > footprint within the EU and worry less about patent trolls and sanctions > and trade wars and encryption export restrictions. > In this regard, I hoped that if SF Conservancy agreed to become a membership project and take us under its roof, these legal issues would be on SF Conservancy's shoulders. This is exactly what I saw as an advantage over a simple fiscal host as well as over when we would have our own small organization without the background of lawyers. At SF Conservancy, I expect lawyers who have experience with this, and that this is their important advantage. > > 2b. A company that focuses on providing legal status - dyne > > Tried researching them. Very opaque. Thumbs down from me. > Yes, we completely agree here. At present, I do not know of any other company of such a focus that could be as option 2c. > > 3. Our own non-profit organization. > > > > The option of founding our own organization may seem the most > > attractive, but at the same time it represents the greatest overhead > > burden for us. Because the current active team members want to focus > > on code maintenance and development, we would have to hire someone > > trusted to deal with the legislation of such an organization. We would > > probably also have to hire some lawyers to deal with the legislation > > to create the company. Because we do not have our own funds and there > > is no certainty what income we will be able to earn, there is no > > certainty how we will be able to pay such people. I see too many > > pitfalls here for this way. > > There are alternatives to being a nonprofit corporation such as being > an association or club, or being a partnership. You'd have to do some > research or talk to a CZ lawyer to see exactly what is available and > what the tradeoffs are. > > There's some work involved in setting up and maybe some work involved in > filing a tax return but I don't think it's all that much. I've set up > businesses and as long as you don't have employees it's easy and doesn't > need a lawyer. However I'm in the US so YMMV in CZ. I would suggest at > minimum investigating if there's an easy route for nonprofits or clubs > below a certain turnover. > > The nonprofits I've been involved with in the US were indeed > incorporated. They file tax returns. Some have employees and some > don't. Those without employees are easy. > > My parents lived in the UK and were members of a drama group and a > community group and some years they were officials such as chair or > secretary or treasurer. NO EMPLOYEES. There would be an annual meeting > but other than that the bookkeeping and correspondence took less than > half an hour a month in the days before they had a computer. They may > have used a lawyer for the initial setup but more likely just followed > the instructions in a book. > For our own small organization, we would have to deal with filing tax returns as well as monitoring possible changes in legislation. This can be easy or it may require hiring an accountant and possibly a lawyer. At the same time, we would have to verify whether the members of such an organization can come from countries other than the one in which the organization will be formed, or whether there is a condition to reside in that state. In any case, it would not provide a protective roof, as it could be from the SF Conservancy. > > X. Liability > > Liability is why you incorporate. If a patent troll attacks we can't > afford to defend TDE. Dyne or some Fiscal Host might regret the > incident but they wouldn't pay to defend something as small as TDE. > > Unlike a drama club we're not worried about fires, falling lights, and > people tripping and breaking their legs in the aisles. But if some > corporation accuses TDE software of losing data, or letting a hacker > in, we can't afford to defend TDE. Doesn't matter if the accusation > is valid or not. > > Incorporation means that if they take TDE there's a good chance that > they won't also take everything the developers own. An unincorporated > partnership tied to a Fiscal Host may not provide that protection - > research CZ law or ask a lawyer. > > And when you've got liability you have to think about liability > insurance. You may or may not need it. It might be mandated by some > government, or by one of the organizations you do business with. For > example in the US I mainly needed liability insurance to satisfy the > landlord of the office I rented. > > We provide TDE under the GNU GPL license, where the disclaimer is part of this license (points 11 and 12). As Chris mentioned and suggested by Philippe, this disclaimer could be added to the first card in the KPersonalizer. That seems like a good idea to me. > --Mike > ____________________________________________________ Thank you for many of your helpful observations and comments. Cheers -- Slávek
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
____________________________________________________ tde-users mailing list -- users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Web mail archive available at https://mail.trinitydesktop.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
