On 11/05/2011 06:08, Antoine Latter wrote:

Which assets would move over to the SFC? The domain name? Any sort of hosting could then be leased by the SFC to whomever is doing this now. I'm a bit fuzzy here.

Everything but the domain name, so that the Haskell community as a whole can retain the ability to do other things with it in future that aren't subject to licensing constraints. Current cash and hardware would move over. Ganesh (haskell.org committee member)

The intent is that all management of haskell.org infrastructure continues to be done by the haskell.org committee, following this charter (e.g. the team that has been making decisions about haskell.org servers and systems for the past 6 months): http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell.org_committee So the day-to-day work of haskell.org that we all see remains with the community. The paper filing and legal work is done by the SFC support. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The process for the haskell.org committee itself was voted on last year: * The committee consists of 7 members. Members are expected to serve a 3 year term, and terms are staggered so that 2 or 3 members step down each year, at the end of October. * The members will elect one of their number to be chair each year. The chair is responsible for making sure that things keep moving, and to ensure that a conclusion is reached on any issues raised. * When a member steps down, either because they have reached the end of their term or because other circumstances require them to step down early, open self-nominations will be sought from the community via the haskell@ mailing list. Previous committee members, including those who have just stepped down, will also be eligible for nomination. The committee will then select a replacement from amongst those nominated. * Each year, the committee will post a statement of the haskell.org assets, and the transactions for that year. Some details may be omitted, e.g. for confidentiality of donors. Cheers, Don On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 2:16 AM, Simon Peyton-Jones wrote:

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

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):

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

_______________________________________________ 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

On 16/12/2011 10:59, Giovanni Tirloni wrote:

On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 7:08 AM, Ganesh Sittampalam mailto:ganesh@earth.li> wrote:

> Q: If an umbrella non-profit organisation "The Haskell Foundation" was > created, would haskell.org http://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 http://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 http://community.haskell.org" in order to avoid confusion.

Would it be a too ambitious goal to create the "Haskell Foundation" at this moment?

It would be a lot of administrative effort - managing accounts, tax filings, etc. While it would give us more control, I don't think the benefits would be very significant. So in my view for now it's best not to go it alone. Cheers, Ganesh

On 16/12/2011 13:21, Thomas Schilling wrote:

On 16 December 2011 11:10, Ganesh Sittampalam wrote:

...

On 16/12/2011 10:59, Giovanni Tirloni wrote:

...

...

Would it be a too ambitious goal to create the "Haskell Foundation" at this moment?

It would be a lot of administrative effort - managing accounts, tax filings, etc. While it would give us more control, I don't think the benefits would be very significant.

So in my view for now it's best not to go it alone.

I agree. If at some point we feel that having a Haskell Foundation would be desirable (despite the additional overheads) there shouldn't be anything stopping us from doing so. Are there any drawbacks in joining such an organisation? How do they finance their overheads? Would a donation to haskell.org include a fee to SPI? I couldn't find any information on their website.

Yes - 5% goes to SPI to cover their overheads. It's detailed in http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/associated-project-howto/ but not on their donations page at http://www.spi-inc.org/donations/. 5% seems reasonable to me and in line with what similar "donation aggregators" charge, for example the Charities Aid Foundation in the UK charges 4%: https://www.cafonline.org/my-personal-giving/plan-your-giving/individual-cha... In effect we've been getting the admin for free from Galois up till now, but it's been getting too troublesome for them. Cheers, Ganesh