Re: [Madwifi-devel] [VOTE] Results

[Michael R. <mre...@ma...>]

Hi.

>> I agree only if we can still contribute to SFLC on an ongoing basis a
>> margin of what we collect as a non profit. Without them ath5k would
>> really not have become a reality.

True. That's why I stated in my original post [1]:

"I currently tend to vote for incorporating as non-profit by joining the
SPI, and at the same time join the SFLC as client. [...] The work of the
SFLC then should be supported by assigning a share (for example 15%, just
to give a number) of the donations we receive."

> Interesting.  I chose option B because I assumed that it would be easier
> for Mike to register the organization in Europe, and because the
> potential contributors were in Europe.

As far as I understand the concept, our non-profit will be registered at
the place where the SPI has incorporated. Or, to be precise, we join an
existing non-profit as a new "sub-project" and thereby automatically
benefit from the advantages of a non-profit organisation. SPI's
certificate of incorporation [2] seems to state that the SPI is
incorporated in the state of New York, thus in the USA.

However, the advantage I see with the SPI is that they have already
established various partnerships with other non-profit organisations in
several european countries and have settled a way how they can accept and
forward donations on behalf of SPI members in these countries. Donations
to these non-profits are tax-deductible in Europe - I see this as a big
advantage, since it hopefully will incite more entities to donate to the
project.

And it will certainly make it a lot easier for bubakov.net to transfer the
money they have "on hold" for us. For those who don't know, bubakov.net is
a non-profit organisation in the Czech republic and runs a community
network. Their CPEs use Atheros-based WLAN cards and run on Linux, thus
they use MadWifi. They decided to assign a share of the member fees as
donation to us - right now they have gathered 3300 Euro (about 4800 USD)!

> I never assumed that there would be any profits significant to actually
> give them to someone.

No profits (as we wouldn't be allowed to make them as non-profit entity
afaik), but we could assign a share of the donations we receive to support
the work of other non-profits we partner with - similar to bubakov.net.
Especially regarding the SFLC IMHO this approach would only be fair and a
good practice, I think.

> Actually, I don't think SFC and SFLC have shared finances.  I assumed
> that incorporating under SFC umbrella would just give some PR points to
> an organization headed by the same people as SFLC.

This is what I thought, too.

Luis, do you have different information about this?

Bye, Mike

[1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.drivers.madwifi.devel/5188
[2] http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/certificate-of-incorporation
[3] http://www.spi-inc.org/donations