Re: [gentoo-nfp] Re: Gentoo Foundation and Gentoo e.V. (Was: Gentoo Foundation Trustees nominations)

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 1:04 PM, Andrew Savchenko <bircoph@g.o> wrote:
>
> I'm not sure how Gentoo e.V. and the Foundation are connected; wiki
> of the former says "Gentoo e.V. is a partner of the Gentoo
> Foundation", though I'm not sure if this is a partnership by
> spirit or some legal binding.
>
> If they are not legally connected maybe it is a good idea to do
> this, or may be there are good reasons to keep the status quo. I do
> not have a strong opinion here, but it will be interesting to hear
> thought of people who understand these matters better than me.
>

Right now I don't believe there is any formal legal relationship
between them.  I used to be a proponent of having one, but I'm not so
sure that is a good idea now.

As soon as you start forming legal relationships you basically start
falling under all the US laws that a lot of people see a non-US org as
a solution to.  For example, if the e.V. wants to financially support
volunteers in a country subject to US embargo, the US Foundation
probably would run into issues having a legal relationship with the
e.V.

Part of me thinks that it makes more sense to keep the relationships
less formal.  Maybe have an umbrella project under the Council that
coordinates local legal entities, and then the e.V. and the Foundation
both fall under that.  Legally they'd be standalone institutions, but
the distro-centered non-legal project would coordinate their actions.
Even if legally the Council couldn't completely dictate their actions,
those voting for board members could ensure that the people who are
running the various orgs are aligned to the overall strategy.

Then if we operate under an umbrella org in a country the liason(s)
for that org could also be a part of that distro-centered project
under the Council.  In the same way we can't dictate all the
operations of the umbrella org but the Council could ensure that the
representatives working with them are aligned with the whole.

So, the structure would look something like:

Council
  - QA
  - arch teams
  - KDE team
  - Comrel
  - Local Organization team
     - e.V.
     - Gentoo Foundation
     - Umbrella Org 1

(Just a smattering of projects above for illustration - this isn't a
change to how the rest of the distro works.  The relationship between
the various legal bodies and the Council is not legally formalized -
they would be accountable to their members which should be aligned to
the distro members, and should be controlled in a way to avoid
forks/etc.)

Just my thoughts on the matter...

-- 
Rich