Should debian formalize t-shirt sales at events (Was Re: Debian-UK).

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 09:33:55AM -0400, Stephen Frost wrote:
> * Sven Luther (sven.luther@wanadoo.fr) wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 09:11:25AM -0400, Stephen Frost wrote:
> > > * Sven Luther (sven.luther@wanadoo.fr) wrote:
> > > > Let's say your paroquial association or housewife get-together association,
> > > > start to sell house-made cakes in order to finance the repainting or fixing of
> > > > the roof of their church or school or whatever. Or school children raising
> > > > money for an excursion or whatever.
> > 
> > You didn't reply to this above example. Plain simple, is this commercial and
> > business for you, or is it not ?
> 
> I'd say it's commercial but non-profit and small enough to not have to
> deal with taxes.  I'm not sure that a large international organization 
> such as Debian could really just say "well, so long as you don't have to
> pay taxes in your jurisdiction it's ok"...  If that's the policy then
> alright then.

Well, at least in germany and france, we have associations which are
non-profit, and have the right to do such things, without being businesses or
commercial stuff. And naturally, you have the guys who do this informally
too, which is what used to happen in the UK previously.

But i guess if you compare what happens in the debian-present show events, and
the commercial subdistributions, and the above example, and apply common
sense, you will fall easily enough on the distinction we are making.

The real question is not if there should be debian t-shirts sold on debian
booth on events, or not, but :

  1) do we want a formal commercial entity in charge of merchandizing the
  debian frenchize with t-shirts, mugs, whatever.

  2) What happens to the money of the above if there is a gain made (and who
  pays if there is a loss).

I guess the reply to debian becoming a commercial entity and doing 1) is
clear, at least in the current context, and well, the way 2) currently works
is that gains are put in a fund serving for next time stock buying, thus
ensuring nobody needs to put money from their own pocket, or donated to debian
for use as the DPL decides (or whoever delegate is in charge of that).

Friendly,

Sven Luther