[Fwd: Re: [xFoundationsx] Help with Open Source Foundation Questions]

[Arnulf Christl]

Hi,
are you aware of the "foundations mailing list"?
foundations at lists.freedesktop.org
http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/foundations

Jo gave me the hint a few weeks ago and I have been following some of 
the discussions a little. Anybdoy with interest in helping to design the 
OSGeo might want to browse their archives or subscribe, it seems as if 
they have some farily good ideas on how to manage OS foundations.

Best, Arnulf.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Foundations] Help with Open Source Foundation Questions
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 10:18:34 -0800
From: Scott Kveton <scott at osuosl.org>
To: <foundations at lists.freedesktop.org>

Hey Everybody,

> Has this article changed any minds on the need for a Non-Profit?
> 
> Are some of the foundations here For-Profit and if so could you tell me why
> you choose to go that way?
> 
> If others choose Non-Profit did you spend much time researching the cost /
> benefit of doing so?

I've been giving all of this quite a bit of thought:

http://staff.osuosl.org/~kveton/2006/01/30/floss-foundation/

And am putting some pieces in place to make it happen.  The idea here is not
to create yet-another-org that people are beholden to.  More to create an
incubator for _non-profits_ to help get them to where they are headed
faster.

We see it everyday here with the hosting that we do.  By handling the
hosting of these projects we really help accelerate their growth and more
importantly their focus on their "main thing".  We have had several projects
approach us asking to act as a fiscal agent for them while they figure out
how they want to formalize their community (under a non-profit or
otherwise).  What I am proposing is the creation of a community incubator
(in the same vein as the Web 2.0 foundation that Chris Messina and I
proposed last summer) that helps folks answer these questions.

My question to this list (and folks like Ron) is, would you use a service
like this if it existed?  I believe I could get this going in short order
and we actually have some resources to make it a reality now fairly quickly.

Anyhoo ... Not trying to dilute Ron's request for help here; just trying to
stir the pot a bit further as this isn't the first (or the last) time we'll
see the exact same email from another project.

Scott :-)

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