Re: [tdf-discuss] candidacy for BoD seat

Hi Drew,

drew wrote on 2011-09-24 17:04:

> Thanks for the time and effort you have put in here and over the years,
> I place great value, and am assured that others do as well, in your
> contributions.

thank you very much for your kind words! In fact, it's really the 
community spirit and the feeling of a big, worldwide family that keeps 
all of us going every day. So it's not the merit of individual 
contributors, but the overall community that does so well, and I'm proud 
of being a part of it. :-) I couldn't do what I do if there was not such 
strong support and positive feelings from the community.

> I would like to ask your opinion on how you see the relationship between
> FrODev.org and TDF evolving after TDF becomes a legal entity.

(I'm speaking with my TDF hat on here, not with my FrODeV hat)

In fact, the German situation is somewhat special, since 1. the 
Foundation is about to be established in Germany and 2. the German 
association acts as legal interim entity.

As soon as the Foundation stands on its own feet, being a legal entity, 
all assets including trademarks, domains but also the money on the 
dedicated bank account will be handed over to the association. From that 
point on, TDF itself has full legal and organizational responsibility, 
so FrODeV and TDF will be two totally independent entities.

Especially for Germany, but also for all other countries, we need to 
work together on defining clear profiles on who does what. For the Paris 
conference, a discussion about local NGOs is planned, where some 
policies and thoughts will be discussed. It makes absolute sense to have 
local entities involved, as collecting and spending money inside your 
own country is much easier than doing that from another country. If, for 
example, in South Africa a LibreOffice event takes place, it makes much 
more sense to have a local association coordinate that legally and 
monetary, rather than a German foundation.

So, we will need to define responsibilites, and also see how donations 
on behalf of LibO/TDF will be handled.

While other countries have it a bit easier -- if someone from France 
wants to donate, going to the local NGO is a logical step, rather than 
to a German Foundation -- for Germany, it will always be a bit more 
complicated. If a German resident wants to donate, who should he donate 
to? FrODeV or TDF?

To answer that question, we need to define the profiles, so we can tell 
what money will be used for, so donors know which activities they support.

My idea is that local associations engage themselves for local projects, 
like FrODeV does for the QA weekend, project's weekend, local contests 
and conference, while TDF engages for global activities, like Hackfests, 
the Conference, central infrastructure and the like.

In a nutshell: It's something we indeed all have to work on for making 
TDF as well as local NGOs grow.

Florian

--
Florian Effenberger <floeff@documentfoundation.org>
Steering Committee and Founding Member of The Document Foundation
Tel: +49 8341 99660880 | Mobile: +49 151 14424108
Skype: floeff | Twitter/Identi.ca: @floeff

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