[deepamehta-devel] [deepamehta-users] DeepaMehta Foundation is about to come

[Malte Reißig]

hello all together.

now some answers and comments have already changed the subject of
this thread, so i try to stick to the fast changes. this reply i
wrote to the message booster club, further comments on jörg and urs
message are placed between the lines.

thanks urs for starting this discussion and thanks for the immediate
comment of matthias. i will try to give you my comment in the
minimum amount of characters, cause my leck of ability to type into
a keyboard...

personally, i like the idea that the further deepamehta development
is dedicated to a vision which is communicated through an
independent organisation which takes care about the developers and
represent the public interests of the project for which the software
is developed! i think also that it is necessary that the
organisational form follows a democratic decision process. after all
such a new form may help us a) to communicate a clear vision of the
deepamehta project b) build up a sustainable structure for reaching
our goals c) motivate others to support this vision with their
manpower or with donations

my further comments are between the lines...

i just wanted to say, yeah! here i am to all the listeners, cause i
am going into "offline-land"(like vince would say) for two days now.

cheers malte

Urs Lerch wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> just to be precise: Legally, we're talking about a "Verein" and not
> about a foundation.
> 
> As I'm told, you need 7 members to set up a "Verein", but only 3 to keep
> it running. That means, there could be 4 part-time members until the
> "Verein" is officially registered.
> 
> For the membership fee, that's a thing which has to be defined. For
> example, the KDE project knows active members and extraordinary resp.
> supporting members. Active members pay no membership fee but "donate"
> their work. (For more details see
> http://ev.kde.org/corporate/statutes.php.) I think that would be also a
> good idea for DeepaMehta.
> 
> In my opinion Jörg could be a member, even if he will be paid by the
> "Verein". I wouldn't take it as a good idea if he's in the board. But
> that's my personal point of view. I'm no lawyer.

in my understanding: the board members are the representatives and
the executors of the decisions which are made in the meeting of
members. board members are officially elected from all active
members (which have a right to vote) for a period of time. since the
concrete function of our board is not clear atm (if they take care
about the financial stuff for example) it seems important to me that
there is always a balanced mix of persons and interests. imo two
persons out of the gmbh is too much for the board.

> Regards,
> Urs
> 
> 
> Am Dienstag, den 22.07.2008, 22:40 +0200 schrieb Jörg Richter:
>> Dear DeepaMehta friends,
>>
>> Urs and I have for the past 6 weeks been brainstorming about how to 
>> further DeepaMehta development, and Urs had the idea to set up a 
>> foundation (Förderverein). The foundation should ensure that the 
>> DeepaMehta project can develop side by side with the DeepaMehta GmbH. 
>> The immediate concern is to generate funds so that Jörg (as main 
>> developer) and possibly other developers can work on the DeepaMehta 
>> project, while customer contracts could be taken on through the 
>> DeepaMehta GmbH. The foundation would be complementary to the GmbH as a 
>> non-profit organisation for people to make donations to.
>>
>> We welcome your suggestions and want to include you in our dialogue 
>> from now on.

the gmbh is hopefully proud to be the first brick in a wall of
supporters which should be, in my imagination, more broad than high.

>> In this correspondence the themes are 1) the set up of the foundation 
>> and 2) its focus, goals and tasks:
>>
>> 1) Foundation set up
>>
>> As I understand it our foundation currently has three members: Andreas 
>> G., Jörg, and Urs. A foundation needs at least 7 members.
>> => I would hereby like to ask you if you would like to become a member 
>> and in particular Annette, Jurij, Jürgen, Andreas W., Malte, and 
>> Enrico.

all of those who were named are active members and contributors to
the community, before someone says: "yes i will" we should have the
vision and purpose clarified. i think everyone of the current active
community members are willing to support the not yet articulated
vision of a deepamehta foundation. but for me this vision has to be
easy to describe (= easy to understand for everyone who uses a pc)

>> Question to you Urs, is,
>> a) does it cost them anything and if so, how much, to become a member?

active members can contribute their work and time to be freed of
regularly fees.

>> b) is the membership paid once only or regularly, ie once a month.

imo it is a good practice to pay yearly, otherwise the
organisational effort raises unnecessarily.

>> Another question is, what do you suggest would be Jörg's status and who 
>> would be president? Can Jörg be a member if he is the main recipient of 
>> the generated funds?

a executive representative should be elected within the first
meeting out of the attendees. i think that you can be a member under
the circumstances of your questionl, like any active member can
hypothetical be the main recipient of the funds.

following is taken from kde e.v.
the executive board is elected for three years and chooses one
chairman and "proxy-persons" (leo says ;)). one of the proxies could
take care about the cashier and the 4th person would be an ordinary
member of the executive board. maybe three persons would also be
enough at first.

how the funds are distributed within the foundation and for which
tasks, persons and events is imo to far away yet but i think that
Jörg has to have a special funded position as lead architect and i
think that every working member (doesn't matter if extraordinary or
ordinary) can be supported financially by the foundation. we should
share each benjamin which comes into the account of the foundation
averaged for jörg, infrastructure and other active members. which
tasks and how much different persons will be supported of the
foundation could be part of the further decision process within the
first meeting of members.

>> 2) Focus, Goals, Tasks
>>
>> Focus: the immediate focus is to support the further and continual 
>> development of DeepaMehta.

imo this will be our focus but not the public vision and purpose of
the foundation, cause the purpose of a foundation needs to be easy
to communicate. i guess that we want communicate a vision for the
foundation which even my neighbour would like to support with a few
bucks cause he can understand it.

>> (A future perspective for the foundation could be to encourage a 
>> interdisciplinary dialogue about the human-machine relationship 
>> i.e.organising symposiums.)

nice outlook!

>> Goal: to have supporters and sponsors
>> Tasks: a) to find supporters, b) marketing and c) organisation.
>> Who would take on these tasks resp. would coordinate the people doing 
>> them?

mre: i would like to help mainly with the marketing of the vision
and could spent a few hours a week with organisational stuff but
atm: i have no possibilities to coordinate people's efforts.

>> Regards,
>> Jörg R.
>>
>> www.deepamehta.de
>>
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> 
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