[scribus-dev] I think it's time

Mon Oct 10 22:55:08 UTC 2011

2011/10/10 Gregory Pittman <gpittman at iglou.com>

> On 10/10/2011 02:13 PM, Craig Bradney wrote:
>
>> On 10/10/11 6:49 PM, Louis Desjardins wrote:
>>
>>> 2011/10/10 Alexandre Prokoudine<alexandre.**prokoudine at gmail.com<alexandre.prokoudine at gmail.com>
>>> <mailto:al**exandre.prokoudine at gmail.com<alexandre.prokoudine at gmail.com>
>>> >>
>>>
>>>     On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 8:14 PM, Gregory Pittman wrote:
>>>
>>>     >  If there is no way to set up some nonprofit entity, then set up a
>>> simple
>>>     >  corporation, in a country where taxes and filings of various
>>> documents are
>>>     >  minimal. A European nonprofit status is of no help to someone in
>>> the US
>>>     >  wanting to have a tax-exempt donation, but doesn't mean that they
>>> would not
>>>     >  consider donating anyway.
>>>
>>>     At a risk of being attacked for not understanding the project or not
>>>     following IRC or whatever I'd like to point out that you absolutely
>>>     don't need any of the above. There are companies like Software
>>> Freedom
>>>     Conservancy who will push the papers and manage the funds for you. We
>>>     (Inkscape) already work with them.
>>>
>>>     SFC in particular accepts donations via PayPal, Google Checkout and
>>>     wire transfers. I don't know if they can take more projects at this
>>>     time, but I can certainly find out.
>>>
>>>
>>> I second that strongly. If down the road the Scribus team wants to go on
>>> its own with a legal entity
>>> only entitled to Scribus, whenever that can happen, the money already
>>> gathered through will only
>>> have to be transferred from SFC to that new entity, when it's ready. Like
>>> Greg puts it, I think it's
>>> time too.
>>>
>>> The other possibility would be to use the AQDPLL which we use already for
>>> LGM and for OIF subsidies
>>> but if this is going to happen, I would need to consider to have some
>>> staff to give a hand only
>>> because being at the head of a small business I have currently not much
>>> time to deal with even light
>>> admin tasks for a non-profit. For Scribus, I would really suggest we go
>>> the SFC way, if this turns
>>> out to be possible.
>>>
>>> Let's do that.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Actually, Christoph tried in Germany and got stuck a myre of legal
>> rubbish. Spent a long time on it
>> until his accident. Put simply, we are all too far apart to be able to put
>> in a concerted efforted
>> separately when someone's efforts fail for whatever reason.
>>
>> Peter is moving back to the US - maybe he can set up a NFP there.
>>
>> However, Greg - 1 country != 1 world.. a US NFP doesn't solve the Scribus
>> world's problems. An EU
>> one would be useful to have too.
>>
>> Anyway... Peter, is this something you can do quickly? OR is it going to
>> take 6 months. We
>> definitely need it. If Alexandre's idea must step in initially, maybe that
>> is worth considering.
>>
>>  My main point is that, regardless of what is done, and in the interests
> of brevity I only mentioned a couple of things, we should be doing
> something, and it doesn't hurt to choose something about which we might
> change our minds later (or even add to), and do some other thing.
>
> It's best not to dither any longer.
>

At this point, the fastest way would be to use the non-profit that already
exists in Montreal. It's legally constituted and is aimed at "developing and
promoting open source and free software" including raising money and
organising conferences. AQDPLL is also a vendor to Google and has already
invoiced Intel, HP and is handling OIF’s money for Scribus. AQDPLL has 3
bank accounts in USD, EUR and CAD. Getting money in is no issue. Keeping
track of the donations through Paypal or any other means should be a breeze
to organise both within and outside the banking operations (so a larger
"Scribus Board" could readily access the info at any time — we cannot have
lots of people connected to the bank account directly so we need the
donation info to follow 2 paths if we want exterior people to be informed of
the donations). Or maybe not a breeze but should be simple enough. However
this will not give anybody a tax-deduction but for small amounts this
shouldn’t matter too much. Going the charitable way is not that easy as well
and the laws are different from country to country. AQDPLL is a non-profit
but not a charitable organisation in front of the law here so while we can
give receipts, these would be of no use when the time comes to declare your
income. We’re not going to solve that at our level anyway. And larger
organisations cannot do it either. They are confined to one specific country
so they must go by those rules. USA laws are very strict on that purpose by
the talks I had with the people at GNOME so, nothing easy in any
jurisdiction. A European non-profit should be considered down the road once
we get into large numbers. Until then, the solutions that work even if not
"perfect" will be the best ones.

Louis

>
> Greg
>
>
>
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