Hi Stefano, first, thanks for your rapid feedback on this subject. Le vendredi, 31 août 2012 08.45:35, Stefano Zacchiroli a écrit : > > *** Possible solutions for DebConf 13 *** > > > > The easiest option to form a legal body for DebConf 13 is to form an > > association (Verein) under Swiss civil law (Art. 60ff.) > > I disagree with this, as I've observed in the past. For one thing, it > doesn't seem to me that it is *that* easy to create this association. > One argument is that, if it were so, it'd have already existed by now, > no? That's a dissappointingly weak argument IMHO. > (But if the counter-argument to that is "we wanted to have an > explicit ack before proceeding", fine.) In my understanding, that's the biggest counter-argument indeed. The main reason that it doesn't exist yet is that there was no unanimous agreement that this is the way to go. Fwiw, all that is needed is a place and time that puts "a set of persons agreeing to form an association" together with "a document that they agree upon to have as bylaws for the association". That's all. Both haven't yet been fulfilled. Furthermore, the feedback we got from various lawyers (since then), IMHO clearly favours the creation of the new association. (And with a similarly weak argument, I'd be surprised if you recommended us to go against lawyer's recommendations… :-p ). > Still, one extra association in a territory where one already exists > will undeniably increase the overall bureaucratic burden (this is a "-" > point that is surprisingly missing from the comparison on the wiki). I disagree. Most bureaucratic things is stuff we will have to do anyway: keep separate accounting for DebConf, signing contracts "as the DebConf organizers", "organize DebConf", … > I repeat myself, but my preference is to reuse debian.ch, and apply to > it all sorts of "legal patching" that is needed to use it to run > DebConf13. It looks like the liability part might be useful for other > future Debian activities in Swiss in the future. _I_ see two problems with reusing debian.ch: a) non-matching membership bodies. By Swiss Law, the body of members, trough the General Meeting, is entitled to take all decisions regarding the pursuing of the goals of the association (unless stated otherwise in the bylaws) including electing, overruling and revoking the board, taking any financial decision, etc. Not all debian.ch members are involved in the organisation of DebConf13 (although they probably should!), they are still granted decision rights upon the actions of the association, like upon the budget that they have to agree on, annually. (The budget will see a bump of 2 orders of magnitude…). And this goes both ways: some current DebConf13 organisers are not members of debian.ch. Each new member currently has to be proposed by an existing member and be accepted by and at the General Meeting. These currently don't have any formal decision power upon DebConf13. b) the risk is put on Debian trough debian.ch, not on "DebConf13": organising a ~100k CHF conference is still a substantial financial risk. This risk is put on whichever association organizes the event. As outlined by Gaudenz, the "good practice", in Switzerland, when organising "big" events _is_ to create a separate association, for precisely these reasons. In cause of trouble, the resources of the association can be taken entirely and the association might be forcibly dissolved by a judge. With debian.ch, this could mean losing the "debian.ch" domain, being forbidden to recreate an association for the same purpose, losing the Debian trusted assets in hand of debian.ch, etc. In short, it puts the risk of organizing DebConf13 on Debian. And although some might think it's a good side-effect of the whole "DebConf is Debian", I firmly think it's a bad one; and one we can avoid by making a separate association. By the way, I am _not_ making a general and multi-annual statement on the need of a new association for each past and future DebConf. I do think that, in the context of Swiss law, the creation of a new association is the correct way to handle the organisation of DebConf13, in Switzerland. And this is also based on experience: * whereas there exists a 3k members cantonal scouts association here, both the 1k scouts camp (with tents, 3 days) we'll have in three weeks and the 100- years book others have been making have separate associations (the latter has 4 members…). * whereas there exists a 40k members national scout association here, the 26k scouts camp (with tents, two weeks) made in 2008 had a separate association. * some friends of mine that just want to organise annual trips have created an association of 6 members to handle the common money. * … I could make a long list, but I think you get the point … > (And just in case: no, I would not consider acceptable keeping DebConf13 > running after DebConf turning it into yet another Debian Trusted > Organization: (…) I think there is a wide agreement on the need to close the DebConf13 association reasonably shortly after DebConf. Closing that association will not be much more bureaucratic burden than "provide conclusive accounting for DebConf13" and "agree where the remaining money (or depts) shall go" that we will have to do anyway. > Whatever option you choose, you'll (obviously) have my > support and collaboration. Good to know, thanks. OdyX
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