[oe] [RFC] Creating an OpenEmbedded founation

[Holger Freyther]

Hello,

for those of you visiting Berlin for OEDEM, or hanging out on IRC  
this shouldn't be new for the others this is your invitation to  
participate in the discussion.

So the natural question is do we need a foundation at all? Everything  
seems to work just fine!

Let me answer indirectly. As our beloved project grows our needs grow  
as well. We seem to handle project devices just fine. We have a wiki  
site containing the ones we have received as a project. You can track  
the number of devices, their origin, which developers had them in  
their hands and where they will go. And we have never had any issue  
sharing them and I'm really happy about it!

As we grow we have more needs, like I already said. This includes  
bigger assets like servers to host our infrastructure, sending koen  
to conferences, buying development boards one doesn't get donated.

If we would lose a device because I turn sane this would be easily  
recoverable, but what would happen if I withdraw one or two servers,  
keep the money that was meant to cover koen's travel to the moon.  
This would be disrupting the OpenEmbedded project internally and  
externally. We have offers for servers, offers for donations so this  
issue is nothing hypothetical but a real one. I would go so far as  
declaring it as a pressing need.

So what shouldn't a foundation do?
	-Make things more complicated
	-Doing business as this is where companies are good at. We mean it!
	-Hold the Copyright of our metadata (it is MIT licensed for a reason).

So what should a foundation do?
	-Help OpenEmbedded to grow
	-Own the projects assets. This would include server equipment,  
devices, hopefully domain-names, etc.
	-Receive donations so we can buy a one-way ticket for koen to the  
moon, or other places were OE exposure is quite low.
	-Maintain relationship with Companies


Manifestation/Relisation of a Foundation: To tell you the truth for  
me it is not a if we need a foundation but a when. Our current  
options for creating a foundation following the DOs and DON'Ts from  
above are the following three.

Software-in-the-Public-Interest (SPI):
	Pros:
		-It is easy to become an associated project
		-We keep in control of our asstes and how our money is spent
		-It helps us not to do busines activities
		-Tax deductable
	Cons:
		-It is a U.S. based organisation and if we decide to leave SPI we  
need to create/find another U.S. organisation where our assets are  
transfered to
		-Read the SPI mailinglist and you might consider SPI a mess.

SPI+FFIS
	Pros:
		-The one from SPI
		-A german daughter organisation that can hold assets and receive  
donations?
	Cons:
		-FFIS seems to be dormant. Someone more close to joey should ask  
him about the status of this orgnisation.

OpenEmbedded e.V. (e.V. is the german expression for registered  
associatio):

	Pros:
		-Tightly regulated by german authorities. This helps us to stick  
with the DO's and avoid the DON'Ts
		-KDE e.V. and probably the GNOME Deutschland e.V.
	Cons:
		-Quite an overhead. We need to hold  general assemblies, manage our  
assets ourselves, try to get tax detuctable.
		-Managing of members...

so what are your opinions?

	z.

PS: I'm so tired...