Re: Mission Statement

[Ekaterina Gerasimova <kittykat3756 gmail com>]

On 07/08/2014, Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi gmail com> wrote:
> hi Andre;
>
> On 7 August 2014 00:13, Andre Klapper <ak-47 gmx net> wrote:
> > Currently there seems to be a mismatch between GNOME's mission statement
> > and OPW activities (doing program administration for other projects).
>
> if that were the case, then we ought to stop handling funds for all
> the other projects for which we currently do handle funds:
>
>   • Gimp
>   • GStreamer
>   • PulseAudio (for GSoC)
>   • PiTiVi (fund raising)
>
> so if we want to discuss this perceived discrepancy, then we should
> frame it in a more general context than the mere OPW.

Emmanuele, the GNOME Foundation does not do program administration for
any of those projects. The Foundation only handles funds for those
organisations. Handling funds involved first collecting cash on the
organisation's behalf in some form or other (cash, invoices, other
donations), then sending our reimbursements only up to the total value
of the monies that we hold for that organisation. This was explicitly
agreed last April when I made it clear to the board that we must not
touch monies which belong to those projects and when the board
unanimously agreed that they will not be affected by the freeze as the
Foundation had no right to withhold those projects' monies.

In other words, the only decision that the Foundation makes for those
projects is "do we hold enough money to cover this reimbursement and
is the reimbursement in line with our mission?".

The contract that the Foundation put together for one of those
projects last year states that any spending has to be in line with the
GNOME Foundation's mission, so the Foundation does try to make sure
that external projects are well aware of the requirements. With the
exception of one project to which we no longer offer our services,
projects for which GNOME handles money always have a positive balance.

If you think that OPW should be treated same as the projects above,
then you appear to be in favour of removing the program administration
burden from the Foundation. I would also be in favour of this as it
will free up a lot of time for the board to concentrate on other areas
such as spending the funds raised through the privacy campaign and
seeking out sponsors for upcoming hackfests.

> ciao,
>  Emmanuele.
>
> --
> http://www.bassi.io
> [ ] ebassi [ gmail com]
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