Re: [Debconf-team] The relationship between DIVA and SPI in terms of sponsorship money
Moray Allan dijo [Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 04:51:50PM +0000]:
> > Well since I was in this organization since its inception I believe
> > I'm on the board of directors as well. Everybody talks to each other
> > before any decision is being made there has to be a general agreement
> > among members, a consensus.
>
> You're not sure if you're on the board? -- can you try to find a
> correct list of who is?
>
> What is the organisation's formal status? Is it incorporated as a
> company, or just an informal association? Is it registered as a
> "non-profit" organisation of some kind?
>
> I'm not trying to be difficult, but these things are important to know
> before an official agreement to handle money for Debian. And in the
> UK or US non-profit organisations are typically restricted in what
> they can do with their money, based on their official registration
> documents.
This is a very important point. In fact, it's good if we are related
to DIVA as a non-profit, and part of the good points is usually that
we are much less impacted by taxes, but OTOH it's much much more
complicated to do some things with our money. We have to keep our
activities within the (usually quite strict) set of allowed uses of
the organization. And that can disallow us to do some things we need
to.
As an example, I was recently invited to Cuba to give a presentation
on a PostgreSQL activity. PostgreSQL Europe cannot pay my ticket (as I
am a non-European attending a non-European activity), and PostgreSQL
USA cannot either (as paying for a ticket to enter an enemy country is
a felony and the legal titular of this entity could be even
jailed)... So I am stuck with a hole in my pocket.
Other examples would be not to be able to transfer money from DIVA to
FFIS/SPI without a clear justification, or being subject of auditing
due to transfering in/out of the country too much money.
Greetings,
Reply to: