Re: Fwd: Draft of Proposal for the GNOME Foundation.

[Nat Friedman <nat helixcode com>]

kelly@poverty.bloomington.in.us writes:

> On 13 Jul 2000 16:04:03 -0400, Nat Friedman <nat@helixcode.com> said:
> 
> >Ok, then they should be able to at least have the ability to specify
> >the portion of GNOME, or a specific subproject, which their funding
> >should benefit.
> 
> By law, donors always have the right to control the use of a bequest.
> Property law generally allows a donor to place conditions and
> limitations on a gift, subject to rules against unreasonableness.
> Organizations who receive gifts with conditions and limitations that
> they do not wish to observe are generally required to return the gift.
> This is one of those sticky areas where a lawyer's advice is very
> helpful; this area of law is full of byzantine little rules (it's an
> aspect of estate law, which is probably the most arcane area in the
> law there is) that are difficult to understand, let alone explain.

Boy, you really know your stuff, Kelly!  This at least sounds somewhat
encouraging.

> >Stupid government.  Ok, so we can at least do telephonic meetings.
> >That sucks; it makes it harder to expose the minutes/details of the
> >meeting in an archive (while still allowing for editing them for
> >privacy).
> 
> One approach I've seen used is to conduct an informal meeting
> electronically, mail a summary of what was decided at that meeting to
> the members, along with a proxy agreement whereby the member signs a
> proxy authorizing the chairman (or some other person) to appear on his
> or her behalf at the meeting, solely to agree to whatever was agreed
> to in the informal meeting.  Once a majority of members have executed
> such agreements, the "real" meeting (which is clearly entirely pro
> forma) can be held, with just the proxies present, who do nothing but
> merely ratify the summary of the informal meeting.  As far as I can
> tell, this comports with the legal requirements for a meeting of the
> membership.  Of course, if you can't get a majority to sign and return 
> agreements, then the meeting cannot be held.  But if a majority won't
> do that, you probably have a problem anyway.

Why do we have to conform to legal regulations at all?  If we just
refuse to call the thing a Board of Directors, then are we still
subject to these asinine restrictions?  We could have a place-holder
board if that's necessary for some reason.

But remember, this is all (at least, in my proposal) part of a virtual
global entity.  I don't see why it would be subject to any of these
laws.

Nat