[OSGeo Finance] Quickbooks, reserve funds...

[Frank Warmerdam]

Ken Tamura wrote:
> I will reply on this tonight when i have time to read the whole thread.
> Quick question first:   the funds contributed that you want to capture as
> detail, what is the obligation or restriction that deems it necessary to
> track over time?

Ken,

75% of project sponsorships funds received for projects like GDAL are
held in trust by OSGeo on behalf of the project to be dispursed by the
project steering committee as they see fit.  We (as OSGeo) have an
obligation to be able to report on the funds available and the transactions
made on behalf of the project when requested.

We also need to distinguish between general funds that the OSGeo board
can spend freely and those we are holding for the projects and that we should
not normally be touching.  Currently the balance sheet reports don't make this
clear and we can get an inflated sense of the funds available for general use.

BTW - I say held in trust, but I mean that in a general sense rather than a
legal sense.  The projects are not separate legal entities - they are
essentially just parts of OSGeo.

Some additional detail is available in the "OSGeo Finance Management" section
of the project sponsorship document:

   http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Project_Sponsorship

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent