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List:       kde-promo
Subject:    Re: [kde-promo] Negative feedback about KDE non-openmindedness in german  Heise-Forum
From:       Eva Brucherseifer <eva () kde ! org>
Date:       2002-02-25 0:10:34
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Hi Mirko,

first of all, thank you for the information, also to Andreas, Waldo, Chris and 
Tackat. 


> > KDE e.V. receives its money primarily in the form of one-time donations
> > either from individuals or companies. There are some companies that
> > donate a part of the profit on KDE related articles to KDE e.V. (On the
> > KDE website it is listed when a company promises to do that I believe.)
> > This year KDE e.v. also received some prize money associated with prizes
> > won by KDE.
> > 
> > Basically KDE e.V. does not have any substantial source of structural
> > revenue. Nor is KDE e.V. actively involved in raising funds at the
> > moment. As far as I know all donations are initiated by the donor.
> 
> This is true. But keep in mind that there seems to be an agreement that
> saying we are open source and begging for money too loud does not seem to
> fit.

What kind of agreement is that? What are the details? Also there I see a 
difference between begging for money and to make it easy to give money by 
promoting ways to do so, I am not sure about how you mean this. 

Right now we often beg for money and support, esp. at events. Like last year 
at Linuxtag we begged a lot of companies to give/pay us cards for the social 
event. Personally I also dislike begging, that is why I am in favour of 
promoting a common sponsorship and donations of money.

> I think there is nothing intransparent here. Everybody KDE contributor may
> become a KDE e.V. member. Everybody member may ask for reimbursements and
> will get money if the board majority agrees.
> The board is elected and notified to the public. For unfortunate but
> understandable reasons, the majority of the board has to focus on other
> priorities. That leaves me to keep up the job, but at least we get together
> for voting before money gets spend.
> 
> Is that not transparent? Even what I just said is notified to the public.

Well, thank you for the information. It's nowhere on the internet, so it's not 
really transparent to most of the people, esp. not to non-germans. And please 
remember that a lot of people joined KDE after the KDE2 meeting and don't 
know the full history.
Also the amounts of in- and output is not clear.  

Does KDE e.V. have the status of being "gemeinnützig" (=of public utility, 
non-profit)? If so, the money donated by german companies and private people 
is tax free, so that you get back some of the taxes you payed. And if someone 
is doing anything for an e.V. that is of public utilitly and has costs like 
travel costs etc, he/she can also receive a receipt of donation and thus 
reduce taxes. There are a lot of options with such a status.

Another thing are "Fördermitgliedschaften" (sponsor membership), where one 
pays an annual membership fee, but isn't a full member. 


> 
> > I prefer to see the "official KDE" better organized.
> 
> I fully agree. And I think KDE e.V. is quite appropriate. IMHO, by still
> working after quite a number of people are forced to put their time in
> other projects, it proved that it is of use.

This seems to be quite a big problem - Andreas is doing all work for KDE 
League alone and you for KDE e.V. But not only Linus doesn't scale well, we 
all don't do. 

> And I do not see KDE e.V. in the responsibility to do kde-promo work,
> sorry. 

No, of course not, but there are people interested in doing more promo work 
and they don't see how the financial framework is made within KDE. Just check 
the archives of kde-events and kde-promo - the question asked most often is 
"I want to organize a booth, how can I get support".

> This is what the KDE League was formed for. 

Well, previous mails already showed, that KDE League has not enough man power 
too and cannot do as much as could be possible.

Greetings,
eva 


> We might pay for
> expenses, though, despite that our whole budget is too little for the
> marketing world.
> 
> Byebye,
> --Mirko.
> 
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