Thank you all for the useful observations and your opinions and
suggestions. It was all important. I will try to make a recap here.
On Friday 19 of February 2021 16:08:54 Slávek Banko via tde-users wrote:
>
> 1. Fiscal host ... e.g. OpenCollective.
>
Mike, thank you for finding out, now I looked at the terms in more detail.
When choosing an OpenCollective platform with the fiscal host Open
Collective Europe, it really does not bring legal entity status, but only
fund management - accepting donations and making payments according to the
instructions of team leaders (collective).
If we remained unincorporated, as we are now, we would gain a way to manage
our fund - accept donations, pay expenses - nothing more. For ownership of
things like domain names, trademarks, we continue to have to deal with
this on a personal level with team members.
If we conclude that we should incorporate, then this choice alone is not a
sufficient solution. There would be a possibility of a combination - to
create your own legal entity and enter into an agreement between Open
Collective Europe and our entity. The question is whether using the Open
Collective platform would provide an advantage at the cost of fees.
>
> 2a. A company that focuses on providing legal status - sfconservancy
>
The SF Conservancy seems to be very credible and could probably be a good
support for us. The patronage of a well-known company, which is also a
representative of major open source projects, could be discouraging for
possible patent trolls and similar harmful creatures. Here, however, it
would depend on whether SF Conservancy would be interested in us becoming
a member project. The disadvantage seems to be that it is bound by US law.
We have to decide whether, despite this fact, we want to try this way or
not?
>
> 2a. A company that focuses on providing legal status - dyne
>
There is a clear consensus here - dyne.org seems very untrustworthy - we
don't want to go that way.
>
> 2c. A company that focuses on providing legal status - OpenCollective
>
I'm adding OpenCollective here as variant 2c, because when choosing
OpenCollective with the fiscal host Open Source Collective, it provides
the services of a legal entity similar to SF Conservancy, not just fund
management. Although there is good transparency in fund management, SF
Conservancy seems more specialized and can offer a stronger background.
However, there is the same disadvantage - it is bound by US law.
Therefore, the same question as for 2a: Do we want to be bound by US law?
>
> 3. Our own non-profit organization.
>
I was worried that this could be an obstacle to creating a legal entity in
the Czech Republic - it will be necessary to use Czech when dealing with
the authorities. On the other hand, if we wanted to create a non-profit
organization in the EU, we would still have to choose a specific country,
so why not CZ, because when choosing another country, it will be a another
language that will be needed.
I researched the possibilities here. According to the current law, we have
an option called "spolek" or "zapsaný spolek" ("registered association" -
allowed abbreviation "z.s."). It is an association of three or more
persons, which has its own statutes and acts as a legal entity. The
members of the association are not liable for its debts.
I also researched what the account management options are here. The local
bank Fio.cz provides a Transparent Account. Such an account allows free
viewing of transactions on the account. Account management and operations
fees are minimal - basically the only fee is for payment outside the EU.
>
>
Again, I ask for your observations and comments.
Currently the basic questions I see:
1) Do we want to try to address the SF Conservancy, even if it means being
bound by US law?
2) If so, but SF Conservancy rejects us, do we want to become a member of
the Open Source Collective?
3) If we want to avoid US law, do we want to continue as unregistered -
only as a virtual team with Open Collective Europe?
4) Or we don't want any of the above - do we want our own legal entity?
Thank you!
Cheers
--
Slávek
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