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

[Andrew Savchenko]

On Thu, 13 Jul 2017 14:14:59 +0100 M. J. Everitt wrote:
> On 12/07/17 18:04, Andrew Savchenko wrote:
> > On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 15:53:54 +0200 Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera
> > (klondike) wrote:
> >> Although the Gentoo Foundation is based on the USA it's activities
> >> (through the different developers) entail most parts of the world, for
> >> example the Gentoo Foundation sponsored the Gentoo project's presence at
> >> FOSDEM through the adquisition of give aways for marketing. Having
> >> people with knowledge of how other law systems work would be helpful in
> >> many ways, on one side by allowing the Foundation help promote
> >> activities in other countries, on the other by being able to direct the
> >> Foundation if issues to Gentoo developers happen on them.
> > As far as I know there is one such organization already, Gentoo
> > e.V. in Germany:
> > https://gentoo-ev.org/wiki/Main_Page
> >
> > As far as I understand from their wiki (it's in German, so forgive
> > me if I misunderstood something, mein Deutsch ist noch schwach)
> > Gentoo e.V. is a partner of the Foundation focused on supporting
> > various Gentoo-related events (conferences) and selling Gentoo
> > merchandise. And looks like they are doing a good job judging from
> > the presence on various conferences.
> >
> > If I'm understanding correctly, "e.V." stands for "eingetragener
> > Verein" meaning "registered association", so Gentoo e.V. is
> > basically a non-for-profit club with paid membership which promotes
> > Gentoo and helps it here and there.
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > Anyway it will be good to promote Gentoo e.V. more (maybe have an
> > English site? :)). Frankly I learned that this is a separate
> > organization only during FOSDEM dinner discussions this year.
>
> Is there any mechanism for joining / supporting the European body at
> all? I, too, had done some very basic research prior to FOSDEM and think
> that those of us based in Europe might be better affiliated to that
> organisation than the American one... potentially.

Gentoo e.V. have the Membersip application form available here[1]
(in German). It was updated last time at Aug 8th 2016, so this is a
good sign.

The membership fee is 6€ quarterly or 20€ annually. Bank account
IBAN/BIC is available here. Postal address is present in the form,
maybe it can be sent via an e-mail as well.

The contact page[2] contains an e-mail: www@×××××××××.org and bank
account information (IBAN/BIC), the same one as the application
form. I suppose that this account may be used for donations as well
as for membership fees. But better ask them via contact e-mail.

There two mail lists available[3]: announce and discussion, but I
can't access the archives. Whether they are not public by mistake
or on purpose, I don't know. Looks like anyone can subscribe to
them, the third list is for members only.

I'm CC'ing to this discussion the Gentoo e.V. official contact and
Sebastian Pipping (sping) because he is listed as the Gentoo e.V.
Chairman at the contact page (other two persons are not on the
active developers list). He should be able to give you authoritative
answers here.

[1] https://www.gentoo-ev.org/w/images/d/df/Mitgliedsantrag.pdf
[2] https://gentoo-ev.org/wiki/Kontakt
[3] https://lists.gentoo-ev.org/listinfo

Best regards,
Andrew Savchenko