Software in the Public Interest, Inc. Workshop =========================================================== Benjamin Mako Hill Debconf 3 -- Debian Conference University of Oslo in Oslo, Norway July 18, 2003 Notes taken by Gunnar Wolf and Michael Banck Edited and Formatted by Benjamin Mako Hill ====== Brief Introduction to Software in the Public Interest This section has slides which have been posted at: http://mako.yukidoke.org/talks/20030718-spi_workshop/ ------ Introduction SPI is a non-profit organization who's goal is to help fund free software and hardware projects. It is an American non-profit organization (a charitable organization) to whom donations are 100% tax deductible. It is currently only US-based. While it can accept donations from all over the world, they are only deductible from within the US. SPI's status limits it to certain activities and includes it certain obligations --- as a result, it should focus on education and development. Show of Hands: - Most people heard of SPI, a few never heard of it. - About half of the people are contributing members. - Nobody knows about SPI, but is not a member because of specific complaints. ------ Member projects and Goals SPI supports a number of projects: - Debian - Fresco - Gnome - LSB - OFTC - Open Source - GNU TeXmacs Fresco is what used to be Berlin - an alternative to the X-window system based heavily on GL. SPI's goals (the very condensed version) are to teach, educate, support and advocate free software (and computers and software more generally) to users, and to aid and support free software development. The projects which SPI has chosen to support are all consistent with this set of goals. SPI will continue to pursue these goals in any way possible. ------ Debian and SPI Debian as a project does not have goods and trademarks. Debian has entrusted their machines and trademarks to SPI. In this way, SPI is like a legal shell for Debian. Outside the US, where SPI has little power, this last task has so far fallen on individuals or other organizations without explicit affiliation. ------ Membership Anyone who agrees with SPI's principles can become a non-contributing member. Any Debian developer can become contributing members very easily. You can sign up at http://www.spi-inc.org/membership (sign up with your Debian email account). Also NMs and active non-Debian free software developers can become a contributing member by stating projects they have worked on and ways that they have contributed. The difference between non-contributing members and contributing members is that only contributing members can vote for the board and for the by-laws, and only contributing members can join the SPI private mailing list. branden: You can watch Branden be polite in this list. ;) Non-Americans can join the SPI as well as Americans. Several members of the board are not Americans. ------ Questions and Comments (some overlap with above) bdale (Bdale Garbee): 501(c)(3) status imposes restrictions on the organization no political activities, but educational and scientific stuff is permitted. branden (Branden Robinson): The above only pertains to the US. mihtjel (Rune Bolding Broberg): People in the NM-process can become contributing members as well. mako (Benjamin Mako Hill): Contributing members can vote, mostly on board members. branden: By-laws amendments will be voted on by contributing members, as well, this is important. tbm (Martin Michlmayr): Contributing members get subscribed to spi-private mailing-list as well where a good deal of conversation in regards to SPI takes place. ====== Old business (Mostly run by Branden) ------ By-laws committee There is nobody present from the bylaws ctte. Committee consists of John Goerzon, Manoj Srivastava and Jimmy Kapowitz. The ctte has been working on rewriting our bylaws to resolve a number of problems, including problems with quorum that have plagued the board and made work very difficult. The ctte was originally scheduled for half a year but is not yet done. Their charter has been extended as a result and they are plodding along patiently. branden: Our by-laws were lifted from an existent non-profit are not very detailed or relevant in some places. ------ Board seats We had a board election in March, as the board had less people than needed. There are upcoming elections that are coming soon. This is a good reason to join as a contributing member. branden: The board was short of required number of members and used a simplified version of the Debian vote system to elect three new board members: - Bruce Perens - John Goerzen - Mako Hill Other members' terms (3 years) have expired (Ian Jackson, Martin Schulze) and their term is extended until proper member voting takes place. ------ Electronic donations It is important to accept electronic donations. Most received are typically small, and it is potentially more expensive to get that money than not to get it for small donations because of all the administrative costs involved. There is an ongoing discussion on how to get electronic donations going. Donations fluctuate heavily and SPI does not do fund-raising campaigns so this is important. Groundspring (one organization that does this for non-profits) has just contacted the Debian-NP crowd so we are going to try to work on this with them if possible. branden: Donations are often small amounts and mail is expensive, electronic donations are a solution. Paypal is mentioned but some board members don't like it. Other organization popped up, doing this as charitable. In the last five months, 4000-something dollars in donations were given to SPI and SPI is not actively soliciting donations gunnar: What about non-American people? branden: You can be involved and donate being a non-American, it's just the legal (e.g., tax issues) umbrella that's in the US. ------ Trademark committee (Mako takes over again) The Debian name is trademarked, and the trademark belongs to the SPI. This gives legal protection so that third parties do not unfairly take advantage of Debian's name. There are some cases where Debian has not agreed to uses of the Debian name (i.e., Trusted Debian came up, but the name itself implied that regular Debian was not trusted). On the other hand, Debian wants everybody to be able to fairly use its trademark but needs a policy (something like an Open Use Trademark Policy?). The ctte is trying to use trademark law in order to keep a trademark as free as possible. The policy will be used for Debian and will be used for other SPI-owned trademarks in the future. Debian is not only trademarked in the US - It has trademark protection in Japan (owned by an individual). The SPI lawyers are now working on how to get an international trademark protection. As it is probably impossible or troubling to have Debian developers in every country owning a mark, perhaps other organizations can do it for us or we can devise some other scheme. Additionally, trademark protection may sometimes cross borders because of international agreements. Trademark committee includes Benj. Mako Hill, Martin Michlmayr, Bruce Perens, Greg Pomerantz and Michelle Ribeiro. The SPI has legal advice on this issue through Greg Pomerantz. -- (Discussion (with some overlap with the summary above)): mako: "Trademark means that when I buy something, I know it's that particular 'something.' A number of people use Debian in that Debian is not comfortable with. On the other hand, we want people to be able to call something 'Debian', when it is Debian without asking our permission. We're looking to create something like an Open Use Trademark Policy (perhaps we want to get away from this name though because trademarks can't be completely open). The real question is, "how open can we get it" within the boundaries set by trademark law. branden: Analogy to the copyright<->copyleft. Also, US is not in every jurisdiction where Debian is trademarked (e.g. in Japan). luca (Luca de Vitis): There is no worldwide trademark? Should people register Debian in their homelands? mako: Our lawyer knows his stuff. enrico (Enrico Zini): Is there the need to register the trademark in many states? branden: This will also being dealt with by the baby-SPI stuff coming up. gunnar (Gunnar Wolf): It will not be not necessary in every state. Trademarks in US are accepted in Canada/Mexico. Donations is not as easily being done over borders. elmo (James Troup): Trademark lawyer == crypto-in-main? mako: Here's the breakdown: - Chris Rourke is SPI General counsel. - Greg Pomerantz is engaging in the trademark stuff. - Crypto-in-main got sponsored by HP/done by a crypto expert. ====== New business ------ Baby SPIs There is a number of reasons to create regional branches of SPI. Many people from outside the US have approached SPI about this. One of the reasons for this would be to have a legal presence of Debian outside the US, receiving donations (e.g., from the European Union which has an important sum of money but cannot invest it outside the EU). On the other hand, there may already be existing free-software-related organizations in countries and it might be a good idea to team up with them to get global coverage -- and as a result, avoid having conflicts or redundancy with those organizations and to not start from scratch. Other people believe that SPI should be kept separate from other organizations as it has its own objectives, constitution, etc. While, cooperation is good, it may not always be the most effective strategy. We must carefully evaluate the act of teaming up -- and, of course, team up with only truly compatible organizations. A problem with having SPIs everywhere is that human resources can be wasted keeping the infrastructure. Jonas Oberg, the vice president for FSF Europe came and said: When we started FSF Europe, a lot of care was needed to monitor and extend the relations between FSF-Europe and FSF-NA - and potentially, FSF-other_places. FSF-Europe and the FSF-NA have a very symmetrical relationship, no one controls the other. They share common goals. Right now, the FSF is not looking at new areas, as they are still experimenting with this. The FSF-Europe establishes presence in specific countries (UK, France, Spain, Sweden...). It approached the different existing free software organizations in the different countries, such as APRIL, AFUL, FFII in France. These organizations can become associate organizations. In order to get the general perception that there is a single FSF Europe and not many small national ones, they have national chapters of the larger organization. There are clear agreements on what FSF-NA does and what FSF-E does - for example, FSF-NA takes care of the GNU project. Additionally, FSF-E has legal standing to take to court a GNU violation in Europe, even if the copyright belongs to FSF-NA. -- Comments (some overlap with the summary above): enrico: You can setup baby-SPIs in other countries, but there already considerably big companies doing stuff for Free Software, including collecting money for Debian. Don't do competition, do cooperation. luca: SPI should be a separate organization, we have our own structure and objectives. Cooperation is good, mixing is not the best option. Having baby-SPIs might involve having people not involved in the main SPI/dilution. Jonas Oberg: First step: Talk to as many people as possible, talk to similar organizations. Cooperate where possible. Second step: Find people you trust, people who are active, sign them up for FSFe Third step: Legal hack: People should think about the FSFe as a European organization Tudar: re Enrico: There are already too many organization around where he should participate in. SPI should cooperate wherever possible. branden: re dilution: No financial dilution, money only comes from north America right now. It's just manpower. luca: re branden: I'm talking about manpower. Vidar(NUUG): What is the goal of SPI? There are so many organizations/people already working on the0se things. There are 30 LUGs in Norway and people are spread too thin. We have money to spend, what would you spend it for? Bridge funding is one way. bdale: We have no reason to solicit money, we don't know what to do with it yet. The amount right now is very low. mjg: Lobbying and grant application is expensive. You need money in order to get money (e.g. from the EU). Splitting up this between a lot of little organizations is bad. mako: We have a good name for people/organization to approach us, we need to make them understand how we work and get the legal stuff done. -- Other Funding Comments and Ideas: There is a chicken-and-egg problem: Before going out and asking for money, we should think on how should we spend our money. We do not know what to do with the little money we have now. We can spend money in order to raise money - 'Bridge-funding' - We have long-term projects, and have enough money for it. We have some short-term needs we don't have the money for - We seek for a sponsor giving our long-term funds as a guarantee. If we split up in many little organizations, we might hurt our ability to pour lots of money into a big important event or purchase. ------ Debian Foundation Ean Schuesseler, the president of SPI, and Bdale and others, have expressed the desire to have SPI become closer, more responsible and responsive to Debian in the model of The GNOME Foundation and the Apache Foundation. This is often connected with the fact that there are people that think that there are many free software organizations and that SPI should focus on Debian, there are many other organizations to help other projects. The current situation: - SPI is not as supportive of Debian as Apache Foundation is of Apache or the Gnome Foundation of Gnome. SPI is different of course from the name on - SPI is not specifically made for Debian. - It could be positive to introduce something as the Debian Foundation - Debian has many sub-projects already - The Debian Foundation could still fund many sub-projects. From my analysis, there are two types of proposals here: 1) SPI changes its name to the Debian Foundation. This seems to hinge on the idea that Debian is a large umbrella so the idea of supporting other organizations within Debian is not a very foreign idea. Other Foundations (Apache foundation has other subprojects). 2) SPI is working well as a larger broader non-profit but not in supporting an individual project. We should move toward a system where we have a small committee that might include a SPI board rep, a Debian/DPL rep, and a Debian treasurer etc. - Maybe baby Debian Foundations can make more sense than baby SPIs. The solutions are not mutually exclusive - they depend on the specific problem's needs. And even a name change can have important positive consequences. -- Comments: joachim: There is no sense to do baby-SPI, but perhaps baby-Debian related ones. bdale: Name-change is simple to implement and has big benefits WRT recognition does not create more bureaucracy in order to fight it. ------ New Member Projects SPI is a legal and financial umbrella but it is not soliciting new member projects. It maybe should accept and encourage new projects. The idea behind accepting others was to help smaller projects emulate Debian's success. Not any project can be accepted by SPI, there are many legal and financial reasons and subtleties (tax fraud at the top of the list). This is one way that SPI might make itself unique and fill a need that organizations aren't doing by advertising SPI as a resource for projects -- kind of like a legal SourceForge. Criteria might include democratic leadership and accountability. Also perhaps a larger size. Perhaps these can be done on an ad-hoc basis. There are no concrete plans on how to accept new projects - some people say that a parallel to the DFSG can be translated to other projects, other say that a different way can be found. branden: enable other projects to emulate Debian's success by working in the same type of legal framework (which is hard to do) -- Comments: unknown: We don't have much services to offer right now to new projects, anyway. Peterk: Are there going to be fixed criteria for joining SPI like the DFSG? -- No plans yet, good idea? branden: We need do a better job of serving debian first, than extend it. bdale: There are some things SPI does well, like holding trademarks (legal research is important!). We don't yet have anything else to offer. SPI does not do a good job with debian right now. We need to clean our house before we go off soliciting new member projects. mjg: Perhaps we can think up project that would be good for SPI and extrapolate from there. ====== Questions and Comments Are donations 100% deductible in US? -- Yes tore: Does SPI have an idea on how to spend a lot money -- I don't think so.. lynora(sp?): - recommendation: send debian installation kits to schools so we can compete with Microsoft - question: What is the nature of the limits on our abilities to be political? mako: It's a fine line, we can't endorse candidates, but we can educate people on issues and candidates. gunnar: Laws about what you can and not do differs with countries. tore: Skolelinux gets 500k dollars, how to best spend it? Spend it in the best way possible, by supporting debian in order to get skolelinux better.