fenics team mailing list archive

[Anders Logg <logg@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 02:28:34PM +0200, Johan Hoffman wrote:
> > On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 09:20:50AM +0100, Garth N. Wells wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> On 16/05/10 21:46, Anders Logg wrote:
> >> >At FEniCS'10, we discussed the possibility of setting up a FEniCS
> >> >Foundation. The purpose would be to have a more formal organization
> >> >that would be responsible of the following items:
> >> >
> >> >   1. Owning the domain name(s)
> >> >
> >> >   2. Having some funds
> >> >
> >>
> >> OK. This would require someone or a 'host' organisation to
> >> administer the funds.
> >
> > I've looked at how to set up a "Stiftelse" (Foundation) in Sweden. It
> > doesn't seem too complicated. The foundation owns itself so no one
> > would need to host or hold the funds. We would set up a bank account
> > in the name of the foundation.
> >
> > Access to the funds would be controlled by the board of the foundation
> > and we would have regular elections to decide who should be on the
> > board.
> >
> > The work involved would be to write a document that describes the
> > purpose of the foundation. This is the "founding document". Someone
> > would need to be "founder" but that person has no control over the
> > foundation other than what is specified in the founding document,
> > which would need to say that the foundation is run by the board.
> >
>
> Ok, so it seems possible without too much work, if we think it is a good
> idea.
>
> Other input to evaluate the idea would be: (i) What are possible models to
> elect the board?

My suggestion would be this:

1. Organize a list of members. Anyone who is a developer or has
otherwise contributed to the project can be a member, but they would
need to actively list themselves as members and pay a small fee. This
would automatically handle the case of members going out of scope
(since they would not pay the fee).

2. Members nominate themselves for the board.

3. Members vote on nominees.

> And (ii) what would be in a founding document?

Someone would need to sit down and write something up. We could set up
a wiki page to get a rough outline. Then someone can edit for
consistency and send it out for approval on the mailing list.

We need to be careful when writing that document since that everything
we do from there on (at least with the funds, it has no say about what
kind of code we write) must agree with that document.

--
Anders

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