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
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
Don Stewart wrote:
The haskell.org committee... has decided to incorporate haskell.org as a legal entity. This email outlines our recommendation, and seeks input from the community on this decision.
Thanks, good news! And thanks for posting to multiple lists for maximum public notification to the community. Can the committee now designate a single list for further discussion please? Thanks, Yitz
On 11/05/2011 10:33, Yitzchak Gale wrote:
Don Stewart wrote:
The haskell.org committee... has decided to incorporate haskell.org as a legal entity. This email outlines our recommendation, and seeks input from the community on this decision.
Thanks, good news! And thanks for posting to multiple lists for maximum public notification to the community.
Can the committee now designate a single list for further discussion please?
Sorry about the noise. I think haskell-cafe is the best choice for further discussion. Please, everyone send further followups to any message in this thread to just haskell-cafe@haskell.org and committee@haskell.org, or just to committee@haskell.org if you want to respond privately. Ganesh (haskell.org committee member)
Hi, As mentioned in the committee's annual report (http://haskellorg.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/first-year-report/), our attempt to join SFC has stalled because they don't have the capacity to accept new projects at the moment. We therefore applied to join SPI (http://www.spi-inc.org/), and they have now offered us "associated project" status (http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/associated-project-howto/). We intend to accept this offer, but are taking this final opportunity to seek feedback from the community before doing so. SPI is very like SFC in what it does and how it operates, so we don't expect this to make any substantial differences to the FAQ quoted below. Regards, Ganesh on behalf of the haskell.org committee On 10/05/2011 23:44, Don Stewart wrote:
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):
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
_______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
BTW as with the Don's original message about incorporating, I distributed this widely to increase awareness, but please restrict any feedback to haskell-cafe@ and committee@. Sorry for the noise! Ganesh On 16/12/2011 09:08, Ganesh Sittampalam wrote:
Hi,
As mentioned in the committee's annual report (http://haskellorg.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/first-year-report/), our attempt to join SFC has stalled because they don't have the capacity to accept new projects at the moment.
We therefore applied to join SPI (http://www.spi-inc.org/), and they have now offered us "associated project" status (http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/associated-project-howto/).
We intend to accept this offer, but are taking this final opportunity to seek feedback from the community before doing so.
SPI is very like SFC in what it does and how it operates, so we don't expect this to make any substantial differences to the FAQ quoted below.
Regards,
Ganesh on behalf of the haskell.org committee
On 10/05/2011 23:44, Don Stewart wrote:
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):
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
_______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
_______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
participants (4)
-
Don Stewart -
Ganesh Sittampalam -
Simon Peyton-Jones -
Yitzchak Gale