Dear haskell.org committee Great stuff. Thanks for getting this together. Things I wondered about are: - who will run the haskell.org entity? - how are they chosen? do they have fixed terms? - how are they accountable to the Haskell Community (eg an a brief annual report would be good; since money is involved, accounts perhaps) None of these look like being problems to me, but I think we should have a page that sets out these matters -- a kind of constitution for haskell.org, if you like -- as part of the process. Simon | -----Original Message----- | From: libraries-bounces@haskell.org [mailto:libraries-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf | Of Don Stewart | Sent: 10 May 2011 23:45 | To: haskell@haskell.org; Haskell Libraries; GHC Users Mailing List; haskell-cafe; | committee@haskell.org | Subject: Proposal to incorporate Haskell.org | | Hello everyone. | | The haskell.org committee[1], in the interest of the long-term stability | of the open source Haskell community infrastructure, has decided to | incorporate haskell.org as a legal entity. This email outlines our | recommendation, and seeks input from the community on this decision. | | The committee's proposal is that haskell.org incorporate as an entity | under the Software Freedom Conservancy umbrella organization (the same group | that Darcs joined recently): | | http://sfconservancy.org/ | | If we proceed with this move, haskell.org will be a legal entity, and | registered as a non-profit, allowing us to more directly accept | (US tax-deductible) donations, and to invest in assets that benefit the | Haskell open source community. | | We welcome your feedback on the proposal attached below. | | -- Don Stewart (on behalf of the Haskell.org committee) | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | = A proposal for the incorporation of Haskell.org = | | In recent years, haskell.org has started to receive assets, e.g. money from | Google Summer Of Code, donations for Hackathons, and a Sparc machine for use in | GHC development. We have also started spending this money: in particular, on | hosting haskell.org itself. There is also interest in running fundraising | drives for specific things such as Hackathon sponsorship and hosting fees. | | However, haskell.org doesn't currently exist as a legal entity, meaning that | these assets have had to be held on our behalf by other entities, such as | Galois and various universities. This leads to tricky situations, with no-one | being sure who should decide how the haskell.org assets can be used. | | To solve these problems, we propose that haskell.org applies to become a member | project of the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) | http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/. The SFC is a non-profit organization | that provides free financial and administrative services to open source | projects. Additionally, it has 501(c)(3) status, meaning donations from the US | are tax-deductible. The SFC would hold haskell.org's money and other assets, | and would be able to accept donations on behalf of haskell.org. | | The haskell.org committee, as described here [2], will make decisions on | spending assets and other decisions related to governing the non-profit. | | | Before proceeding, we are inviting input from the community in the form | of specific objections or queries regarding the plan. | | We've tried to answer some of the most likely questions: | | Q: Does this mean that my Haskell project must now be covered by a | copyleft licence such as GPL? | A: No, but Haskell projects using haskell.org resource should use an | Open Source licence | http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical. | | Q: Will it still be possible to use community.h.o to host | non-open-source material, such as academic papers? | A: An overall minority of such content, as is the current situation, is | not a problem. | | Q: Will it still be possible to have job ads on the haskell.org mailing | lists and website? | A: Yes. | | Q: Will this affect our ability to host the Haskell Symposium | http://www.haskell.org/haskell-symposium/ and Industrial Haskell | Grouphttp://industry.haskell.org/ webpages within haskell.org? | A: No. | | Q: What will be the relationship between haskell.org and other | organizations such as the Haskell Symposium and Industrial Haskell | Group? | A: Those organisations will continue to exist as separate entities. | | Q: If an umbrella non-profit organisation "The Haskell Foundation" was | created, would haskell.org be able to join it? | A: Yes. It's likely that in such a scenario, the Haskell Foundation | would become the owner of the haskell.org domain name, with the cost | divided between the members. The entity that is part of the SFC would | be renamed "community.haskell.org" in order to avoid confusion. | | [1]: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell.org_committee | [2]: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell.org_committee#Operation | | _______________________________________________ | Libraries mailing list | Libraries@haskell.org | http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/libraries