[OOTB-hive] Becoming a non-profit

Richard Esplin richard.esplin at alfresco.com
Fri Jul 24 06:53:10 BST 2015 

Thanks Marcos for sharing the link to the video.

As an aside, over the past four years Cedric and I have discussed whether Alfresco should be part of OW2. I think it is a foundation that closely matches the style of Alfresco, and they have some useful resources that we would like to leverage. But I don't think our team is ready for that step at the moment  as we have had a lot of transitions over the past two years. That said, we certainly have a lot to learn from the experience of OW2.

It was interesting at OSCON to compare the Order of the Bee with other projects. I think the governance of the Order is very strong. I think the current mission, bylaws, and committees are excellent. They are well organized, provide a lot of clarity, and do not result in too much overhead. It is always useful to learn about additional approaches, but I think the current framework is sufficient so long as the Order has a way to handle sponsorship money.

Now that I understand fiscal proxies, I am prepared to put the governance question aside for the rest of the year.

It is nice to hear from you, and thank you for sharing.

Richard

On Wednesday, July 22, 2015 11:05:32 Marcos Abreu wrote:
> Contributing to the discussion about registering the order ...
> 
> I recently attended a lecture by Cedric Thomas - CEO of OW2 (ow2.org) – about
> governance in open source software projects. I don't know if OW2 needs
> presentation to this group, particularly I had good experiences using Open
> Source products from their projects such as SpagoBI and Talend.
> 
> The lecture can be viewed in English at this link:
> 
> http://hemingway.softwarelivre.org/fisl16/high/40t/sala_40t-high-201507101705.ogv
> 
> (Not good video definition, sorry)
> 
> The Cedric's ideas on how governance matters and how it can contribute to
> innovation in open source projects are quite interesting.
> 
> His proposal to divide the OpenSource projects in different levels (or
> waves) is provocative. And it's hard to not identify the Order-of-the-bee as
> an clear example of this evolution process from what Cedric calls
> "Open-Source by enterpreneurs" to the third level "Open-Source by
> Committees".
> 
> Having a Governance rule is different from having an organization registry.
> But both issues are related.
> 
> I believe that the order aims to encourage contributions to Alfresco
> Community, perhaps an evaluation of a governance framework can help bring
> transparency to this process, and the registration of the organization
> occurs as a parallel and related process.
> 
> Speaking of community management for this group may sound ridiculous
> because we have here people with a lot of community experience. But in
> Cedric's presentation, he mentions the book of Jono Bacon (
> http://www.jonobacon.org/) called “The Art of Community” (can be download from
> http://www.artofcommunityonline.org/), I didn't know it, and I'm finding it
> very interesting reading.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Marcos
> 
> 2015-07-22 10:59 GMT-03:00 Dioma Consultoria <contato at dioma.com.br>:
> 
> > Contributing to the discussion about registering the order ...
> >
> > I recently attended a lecture by Cedric Thomas - CEO of OW2 (ow2.org) –
> > about governance in open source software projects. I don't know if OW2
> > needs presentation to this group, particularly I had good experiences
> > using Open Source products from their projects such as SpagoBI and Talend.
> >
> > The lecture can be viewed in English at this link:
> >
> >
> > http://hemingway.softwarelivre.org/fisl16/high/40t/sala_40t-high-201507101705.ogv
> >
> > (Not good video definition, sorry)
> >
> > The Cedric's ideas on how governance matters and how it can contribute to
> > innovation in open source projects are quite interesting.
> >
> > His proposal to divide the OpenSource projects in different levels (or
> > waves) is provocative. And it's hard to not identify the Order-of-the-bee
> > as an clear example of this evolution process from what Cedric calls
> > "Open-Source by enterpreneurs" to the third level "Open-Source by
> > Committees".
> >
> > Having a Governance rule is different from having an organization registry.
> > But both issues are related.
> >
> > I believe that the order aims to encourage contributions to Alfresco
> > Community, perhaps an evaluation of a governance framework can help bring
> > transparency to this process, and the registration of the organization
> > occurs as a parallel and related process.
> >
> > Speaking of community management for this group may sound ridiculous
> > because we have here people with a lot of community experience. But in
> > Cedric's presentation, he mentions the book of Jono Bacon (
> > http://www.jonobacon.org/) called “The Art of Community” (can be download
> > from http://www.artofcommunityonline.org/), I didn't know it, and I'm
> > finding it very interesting reading.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Marcos
> >
> > 2015-07-21 4:41 GMT-03:00 El Gigantes <el_gigantes at hotmail.co.uk>:
> >
> >> Hi Bees
> >> I am in agreement with Jeff that this should be thought about of in
> >> Europe as this is where most of our members are situated, I will however
> >> caution against registering the order as a business entity of any sort as
> >> that would require much paper work that I am not sure we can commit to at
> >> this time. We would need to be registered within a nation’s border (address
> >> an’ all) and our activities cross border may/would also incur unnecessary
> >> legal and bureaucratic work every time we would want to do something e.g.
> >> BeeCon. Unless, that is, we choose to ground ourselves officially within
> >> one border.  I am of the belief that this is too early to take on right
> >> now. At least not until we have our first BeeCon, such that we can have an
> >> idea as to what it takes to get it off the ground to begin with.
> >>
> >> Lanre Abiwon
> >> _________________________________________
> >> If you do things right, people won’t know that you’ve done anything at
> >> all.
> >>
> >> On 21 Jul 2015, at 01:05, Boriss Mejias <tchorix at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear all,
> >>
> >> Heiko Robert already discussed the idea of having the Order of the Bee
> >> registered as a legal entity, He knows a lot about how important is this in
> >> Germany, so he might have good insights on this.
> >>
> >> I'm actually really bad on these kind of tasks, so even though I'm Chair
> >> of the Gov committee, I prefer not to be involved in the tasks of this
> >> project. I will follow up and comment, but I rather not take the
> >> responsibility of carrying associated task.
> >>
> >> I will certainly concentrate my energy on the organization of BeeCon.
> >>
> >> cheers
> >> Boriss
> >>
> >> On 20 July 2015 at 20:52, Tahir Malik <tahir.malik at contezza.nl> wrote:
> >>
> >>> I Agree with Jeff,
> >>>
> >>> In Europe it's not needed to be a registered company to receive or spend
> >>> money. Sure it's easier. And even to become one is in most countries just
> >>> to file a paper pay about 100€ and you're done.
> >>>
> >>> So I also think we should do this related to Beecon, but with it also
> >>> comes a great amount of administrative tasks which we'll need to perform.
> >>> In case we have an accountancy company which files the tax files, then we
> >>> need a yearly income to cover the costs.
> >>>
> >>> This is sure possible by doing a Beecon yearly but it's an extra
> >>> headache we'll have.
> >>>
> >>> Have a good weekend!
> >>> Tahir Malik
> >>> ------------------------------
> >>> From: Jeff Potts <jeffpotts01 at gmail.com>
> >>> Sent: ‎20/‎07/‎2015 20:34
> >>> To: Richard Esplin <richard.esplin at alfresco.com>
> >>> Cc: Order of the Bee <ootb-hive at xtreamlab.net>
> >>> Subject: Re: [OOTB-hive] Becoming a non-profit
> >>>
> >>> Good info, thanks.
> >>>
> >>> I want to separate this issue from BeeCon as they are related, but not
> >>> fully dependent on each other. There are ways the conference can accept and
> >>> spend money without requiring The Order to have a formal business entity. I
> >>> do not want the conference held up waiting on this. Maybe The Order will
> >>> form an entity and, if it does, maybe the conference will leverage it, but
> >>> it definitely is not a requirement.
> >>>
> >>> Regarding where the entity should be formed, because most board members
> >>> (and membership) are based in Europe, I think it probably makes the most
> >>> sense to do something in Europe rather than the US.
> >>>
> >>> Jeff
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 10:55 AM, Richard Esplin <
> >>> richard.esplin at alfresco.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> As part of the discussion around BeeCon, I spent a little bit of time
> >>>> reading about what it would take to organize Order of the Bee so that it
> >>>> could accept money. Here are a few things I found:
> >>>>
> >>>> * Organizing as a non-profit in the US requires incorporating on the
> >>>> state level ($100-ish dollars), and then filing for non-profit status with
> >>>> the IRS ($750). It probably requires a few days of paperwork. The IRS
> >>>> rejected non-profit applications from a few open source projects two years
> >>>> ago.
> >>>>
> >>>> * I'm pretty good at filling out this sort of paperwork and willing to
> >>>> help out, but I won't be able to look at it until the end of August.
> >>>>
> >>>> * Germany and Belgium seem promising for organizing as a non-profit
> >>>> around open source projects.
> >>>>
> >>>> * OOTBee can become part of the Software Freedom Conservancy, Software
> >>>> in the Public Interest, or another foundation that exists to provide fiscal
> >>>> stewardship services to the open source community. But as the community
> >>>> organization for a commercial open source project, we might not directly
> >>>> fit their mission.
> >>>>
> >>>> * I think CentOS has needs that are the most similar to ours. It looks
> >>>> like currently is it legally affiliated with Red Hat.
> >>>>
> >>>> * We might be able to get some free legal advice from the Software
> >>>> Freedom Law Center, Free Software Foundation, or Free Software Foundation
> >>>> Europe.
> >>>>
> >>>> * I'll get a sense for whether Alfresco would be willing to help OOTBee
> >>>> organize as a non-profit.
> >>>>
> >>>> * I'll ask around at OSCON this week to see how other projects address
> >>>> these issues.
> >>>>
> >>>> Cheers,
> >>>>
> >>>> Richard
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> OOTB-hive mailing list
> >>>> OOTB-hive at xtreamlab.net
> >>>> http://www.xtreamlab.net/mailman/listinfo/ootb-hive
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> OOTB-hive mailing list
> >>> OOTB-hive at xtreamlab.net
> >>> http://www.xtreamlab.net/mailman/listinfo/ootb-hive
> >>>
> >>>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> OOTB-hive mailing list
> >> OOTB-hive at xtreamlab.net
> >> http://www.xtreamlab.net/mailman/listinfo/ootb-hive
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> OOTB-hive mailing list
> >> OOTB-hive at xtreamlab.net
> >> http://www.xtreamlab.net/mailman/listinfo/ootb-hive
> >>
> >>
> >

More information about the OOTB-hive mailing list