Textpattern CMS support forum
You are not logged in. Register | Login | Help
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
Re: Textpattern Legal Entity
Hi mike,
I’m by no means against a membership fee but as you pointed out what would the difference be between the members and the rest of the community?
The obvious thing would be the right to vote but I would personally not want to see a preferential treatment to either. My experience in this forum is that everybody is offering, even by asking a question and receiving an answer as most of the times it’s the questions which guide the documentation of the solutions.
So what are everybody’s views re membership v community?
Yiannis
——————————
NeMe | hblack.art | EMAP | A Sea change | Toolkit of Care
I do my best editing after I click on the submit button.
Offline
Re: Textpattern Legal Entity
colak wrote #294197:
even by asking a question and receiving an answer as most of the times it’s the questions which guide the documentation of the solutions.
That is a worthwhile point.
Offline
Re: Textpattern Legal Entity
colak wrote #294197:
So what are everybody’s views re membership v community?
I’m for fewer barriers to participation. Not sure I understand what advantages membership would bring the community or the participant.
Offline
Re: Textpattern Legal Entity
Thinking about the practical aspects of voting, how will members be invited to vote? A forum announcement will go unnoticed by some. How much work will be needed to contact members by their forum email, or by an email they give on becoming a new member? Someone will be needed to administer this, so does the number of members make a difference or not for their workload. If the number of members makes a difference to workload, then a small membership fee ($2 per year?) would probably be enough to weed out those not really interested. (Free for core and plugin developers and moderators)
Offline
Re: Textpattern Legal Entity
Digging a bit more into Tiki’s setup, they view the Tiki Community as more fluid, and the Tiki Association as more stable. That makes sense to me.
They have voting membership, non-voting membership, and a right of rejection when they believe interests conflict:
From The Role of the Tiki Software Community Association
Membership
Membership will allow people to get involved in the Association. To maintain the current way of working within the Tiki Community, the Association will initially consist of members of the Tiki Admin Group as its only VOTING members. This is consistent with the Tiki Admin Group’s current system of voting on issues. Subsequently, new VOTING members can only be added by successful vote of the Board of Directors.
For purposes of fund raising and involving more people in its day-to-day operation, the Association will offer NON-VOTING memberships to individuals, non-profit organizations and corporations, for a fee which will differ depending on whether the member is an individual, non-profit, or corporation (will depend on size of corporation). These members join out of their self-desire to contribute to the Association and to be associated with it on a regular basis. The Association will organize special meetings (online/offline), provide a special newsletter, etc…, to help keep in touch with members in a more formally recognized way, and to make their ongoing fee contribution worthwhile. We hope that many from the extended user and contributor base of Tiki will sign up to show their support for Tiki, individuals, non-profits, and corporations alike.
While anyone can apply to be a NON-VOTING member, as a safeguard the Association has the right to reject individuals, non-profits, or corporations where there could be perceived or real conflicts of interest with that of the Tiki Community.
Also a FAQ:
What if I simply want to join Tiki?
Tiki is a free and open source software project. Anyone can join and participate without paying or officially joining anything — simply tiki-register.php. For more information about the community in general, see WhoWhat.
Last edited by maverick (2015-08-18 17:12:35)
Offline
Re: Textpattern Legal Entity
mrdale wrote #294202:
I’m for fewer barriers to participation. Not sure I understand what advantages membership would bring the community or the participant.
Membership for associations is a legal per-requisite. In Cyprus an association should at any point have at least 20 members. I don’t know how it is in other countries.
Yiannis
——————————
NeMe | hblack.art | EMAP | A Sea change | Toolkit of Care
I do my best editing after I click on the submit button.
Offline
Re: Textpattern Legal Entity
Hmmm, we need to get back onto this. Would be interested to hear Stef and Robert’s opinions on it all.
Offline
Re: Textpattern Legal Entity
I’m no lawyer, but some kind of legal entity is something I’d love to have, if nothing else than for the security and peace of mind at being able to lodge domain names with it that have more than one person holding the renewal keys.
I’ve only ever been employed or part of a small Ltd company (with all the paperwork schmuckus that goes with it) so only have limited exposure to the kind of thing being talked about here. In terms of structure, dunno, but the Tiki people seem to have most of the bases covered. And I’ve already mentioned my aims to keep the project light, nimble and capable in the spirit of its “Just Write” foundations. Any other aims and objectives around this are fine by me if someone wants to draft some more complete ideas from what’s been suggested so far.
I’m guessing legal minimum for most types of organisation — however small — would be some kind of Board made up of at least one Director and one Secretary: paper titles only. Then I guess membership would either be free for those that want to be affiliated with the group, or paying a small denomination permits becoming some kind of associate Member and the benefits that entails. Which are, ummm, what? Voting rights to nominate or change leadership? More clout in the direction of the project? Greater roles of responsibility for some part of the project with the prestige that comes with it? Dividends? A Textpattern badge?
Whichever way it’s sliced, it all sounds terribly formal. I’d prefer to go for the most fluid option available to us so there are as few legal hoops to jump through and minimal entry barriers for people who have time and energy to get involved. Nothing dries up creativity / desire to help as much as having someone say “sure you can, but first you need to stand on one leg and sing your country’s national anthem while juggling piranhas… which you have to buy first.”
The smd plugin menagerie — for when you need one more gribble of power from Textpattern. Bleeding-edge code available on GitHub.
Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp
Offline
Re: Textpattern Legal Entity
I could ask our company accountant to look into it, but…
- she hasn’t set a NPO up before.
- I would have to pay her for her time
- it would be UK-based
Let me know if you want to proceed?
Offline
Re: Textpattern Legal Entity
philwareham wrote #294925:
I could ask our company accountant to look into it, but…
Let me know if you want to proceed?
- she hasn’t set a NPO up before.
there might be a simple form / template one can follow
- I would have to pay her for her time
maybe we use summer fund for this or we can crowd source for funds. (what would be the estimated costs)
- it would be UK-based
+1
…. texted postive
Offline
Re: Textpattern Legal Entity
philwareham wrote #294925:
I could ask our company accountant to look into it, but…
- she hasn’t set a NPO up before.
- I would have to pay her for her time
- it would be UK-based
I think a non-dev should do this, because devs have plenty to do and this entity could be time-consuming just when the devs don’t want it. I’d volunteer but I’m very busy for the next month, flitting, and after that I have other priorities but as I am useless at helping with forum questions but like Textpattern, it should be someone like me, imho, who should make this happen. Els offered her services (book-keeping and maybe other?) which are invaluable and she’s based in the Netherlands. As Stef mentioned a while back, the UK and USA approach to small business leaves a lot to be desired. (Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Els is someone like me!)
Just my 2p. This thread stalled and although your suggestion would get it moving, Phil, I personally don’t think we are quite ready to splash the cash in that way just yet. But also not sure what to do next. I will help with this if necessary but you won’t see me much for a month.
Offline
Re: Textpattern Legal Entity
OK thanks, well I’m off on holiday from next week for a fortnight, so I will pick this up on my return and see the mood in the community then.
I’m not fussed where the organisation is based, as long as the country of origin is favourable to the kind of organisation we want to set up (a not-for-profit I think it’s titled).
I also don’t think there should be a paid membership or anything too complicated. We just need a standalone entry that owns the domain name and suchlike, with a small group of people overseeing it.
Offline