General questions

Hi,

A few questions:

The Advisory Board

1 - Where would I find a rooster of what corporations constitute the
board and who their representatives on the board are?

2 - Minutes from AB meetings, where would I find those?

Current Budget (expenses paid primarily)

1 - Where, or when will financial statements become public, either for
general availability (my preference but I know that cuts across the
grain form many), or restricted to TDF membership?

Apologies if this is just my lack of searching skills.

Thanks,

//drew

Hi,

A few questions:

The Advisory Board

1 - Where would I find a rooster of what corporations constitute the
board and who their representatives on the board are?

I think the list has been advertised... but I not sure the actual
names of the people delegated to represent such companies are
relevant.
An AB seat is bound to the sponsoring entity, and they get to
designate whom-ever they want at any time to represent them.
AB is the only entity where people are not there as individual but as
representative of some other entity.
So I agree that the list of entity should be public, but the
individual's name of the representative... not so sure it is required.

2 - Minutes from AB meetings, where would I find those?

I don't think that such minutes are published, nor should they.
If you want honest and frank advices/opinions from big corporation,
you can't have these advice being published publicly.

Similarly in order to get advice from these actors, I expect our
representatives to present to them ideas, line of inquiry, nascent
projects that are being considered... most of them in a state of
development that would render them premature for public disclosure at
that time...
So once you remove all that meat from the minutes, you would be left
with nothing substantive... I don't see the point.

Current Budget (expenses paid primarily)

1 - Where, or when will financial statements become public, either for
general availability (my preference but I know that cuts across the
grain form many), or restricted to TDF membership?

Since we are collection money from the public, under charitable
status, I think we should publish publicly at least a top-level
'Income Statement' and Balance Sheet.

Members on the other hand should have the ability to audit the full
detailed accounting ledger, provided some confidentiality requirement
(every member is entitled to see the books, but not to publish or
disclose to non-member information contained herein that has not
otherwise been made public. the idea is to empower the membership to
trust-but-verify, not to allow competing entity to gain inside
knowledge)

Otoh the stifung was just created... up to now the accounting were
somehow mixed with frodev... so I would no expect to have anything
published for a while. Realistically public disclosure of some
accounting would prolly be an end-of-fiscal-year event... since the
work needed is already done for tax purpose it would not be an extra
burden on our volunteers.

Norbert

> Hi,
>
> A few questions:
>
> The Advisory Board
>
> 1 - Where would I find a rooster of what corporations constitute the
> board and who their representatives on the board are?

I think the list has been advertised...

So did I, but darned if I can find where.

but I not sure the actual
names of the people delegated to represent such companies are
relevant.
An AB seat is bound to the sponsoring entity, and they get to
designate whom-ever they want at any time to represent them.
AB is the only entity where people are not there as individual but as
representative of some other entity.
So I agree that the list of entity should be public, but the
individual's name of the representative... not so sure it is required.

Right enough - just wanted to understand who represents TDF in those
meetings? [this point I may have just overlooked in my reading]
Then, how does what comes from those meetings work it's way to the
general membership?

>
> 2 - Minutes from AB meetings, where would I find those?

I don't think that such minutes are published, nor should they.

Actually public minutes are specifically mentioned on the wiki pages
discussing setting up the AB - though I, like you , expect to see them
heavily redacted and that is also covered on the wiki pages.

If you want honest and frank advices/opinions from big corporation,
you can't have these advice being published publicly.

Similarly in order to get advice from these actors, I expect our
representatives to present to them ideas, line of inquiry, nascent
projects that are being considered... most of them in a state of
development that would render them premature for public disclosure at
that time...
So once you remove all that meat from the minutes, you would be left
with nothing substantive... I don't see the point.

I feel strongly however, that who and when are important to have out
there.

>
> Current Budget (expenses paid primarily)
>
> 1 - Where, or when will financial statements become public, either for
> general availability (my preference but I know that cuts across the
> grain form many), or restricted to TDF membership?

Since we are collection money from the public, under charitable
status, I think we should publish publicly at least a top-level
'Income Statement' and Balance Sheet.

Members on the other hand should have the ability to audit the full
detailed accounting ledger, provided some confidentiality requirement
(every member is entitled to see the books, but not to publish or
disclose to non-member information contained herein that has not
otherwise been made public. the idea is to empower the membership to
trust-but-verify, not to allow competing entity to gain inside
knowledge)

Yes - I'd be in favor of public top level figures but for details,
absolutely there should be a condition of confidentiality.

Otoh the stifung was just created... up to now the accounting were
somehow mixed with frodev... so I would no expect to have anything
published for a while. Realistically public disclosure of some
accounting would prolly be an end-of-fiscal-year event... since the
work needed is already done for tax purpose it would not be an extra
burden on our volunteers.

I'd fall of my chair if someone said, 'it's all put together already' -
though end-of-year figures with nothing but sub totals is no real
disclosure, IMO.

Norbert

//drew

Hi,

Norbert already said a few things, so I'll just add some content briefly. :slight_smile:

1 - Where would I find a rooster of what corporations constitute the
board and who their representatives on the board are?

That's indeed something we need to work on. At least the list of entities should be made public also on our website, so far we only have it in two press releases. Whether the individuals should be disclosed in public is something the AB should decide. I see no problems here, but I'd like to ask them first.

2 - Minutes from AB meetings, where would I find those?

Those won't be public. Based on our statutes, important content will be held private as long as privacy is required. However, during AB calls, usually no decisions are made. As Norbert said, when big corporations give you advice, they not always feels comfortable of doing so in public, which is rather understandable.

So, while we try to transport all the messages we receive for the general audience, certain parts of the calls will always be private, therefore we will issue no public meeting minutes.

I see this is a bit less transparent than our other activities, but I think here it is required.

1 - Where, or when will financial statements become public, either for
general availability (my preference but I know that cuts across the
grain form many), or restricted to TDF membership?

We are right now in the process of transferring all assets, including the budget, to the new entity. I plan to issue some more concrete statements on where we stand, what we need, and what we pay with it, but this all takes its time. My plan is to make this public to everyone, if law allows, but it might take some more time. :slight_smile:

Florian