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The Document Foundation Launches €50K Challenge, Legal Entity Quest
An anonymous reader writes "The Document Foundation, the group responsible for forking the OpenOffice.org project away from Oracle's control and into the shiny new LibreOffice suite, has announced a drive to raise €50,000 to set up as a legal entity. The Foundation, formed by numerous OpenOffice.org community members tired of the overbearing hand of Oracle preventing them from progressing the development of the popular open source productivity suite, has passed several recent milestones. It's released a full feature-complete version of its LibreOffice productivity suite, and announced deals with companies including Canonical to have LibreOffice replace OpenOffice.org as the default productivity suite in several Linux distributions."
When you create a legal entity, then corporations can sue!
If you keep to given/true name endorsing each component to peacefully ASSEMBLE naturally without a legal entity, then you are all untouchables in the public domain as endorsed by privateer individuals ready to in-state their claims to a Secretary of State when the Count(r)y Courts are overwhelmed by the misplaced Trust to the corporation United States (US Code 28, 3002 15 "United States" is a federal corporation) that perprestures it's many tendrils
All the links in the summary point to the same site. All the links in all the stories linked from here go back to the same web of stories on the same site. There's not a link to an actual original reference anywhere except to the original mailing list announcement about Libre Office. There's not even one to The Document Foundation's site. It's all just ad-bearing pages forming a neat little maze.
http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2011/02/16/libreoffice-community-starts-50000-euro-challenge-for-setting-up-its-foundation/
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Maybe they should incorporate in a different country, I mean, at worst were looking at around $400 for a regular corp and $800 for a non-profit (US States), at the currently ran operation needing eu 50k to start up I would seriously doubt the legitimacy of the management at this point.
To be saying things like "tired of the overbearing hand of Oracle preventing them from progressing"
I support the fork, and think it's good they did it when momentum was on their side, but to act like they were prevented from progression by oracle is silly. It was seeing the writing on the wall at best (and very likely) and fear at worse.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Fifty thousand sounds like an outrageous figure. I can start (and have started) a company for MUCH MUCH less than that. "The Steering Committee came to the conclusion that a foundation based in Germany would provide the best stability" *cough* BS *cough*. And their second choice is the UK? What the hell? Are these people naive or just lazy? For a borderless organization, it simply strains belief that they would choose a business-hostile jurisdiction to incorporate under. Hell, I could make some phone calls and have a Hong Kong company up and running by the end of next week. Even if they wanted to stay in Europe for some reason, aren't there friendly jurisdictions like Luxembourg or Andorra or something? The equivalent to Delaware? I smell a rat, someone (or someone's cousin, fraternity brother, etc.) is making some cash off this deal.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Uh, it's only about having a legal entity - or would it be a reasonable point to have a financial ability to operate that entity? Like, marketing, travels, business planning, accounting etc.
Die Spammer!
Fifty thousand sounds like an outrageous figure. I can start (and have started) a company for MUCH MUCH less than that. "The Steering Committee came to the conclusion that a foundation based in Germany would provide the best stability" *cough* BS *cough*. And their second choice is the UK? What the hell? Are these people naive or just lazy? For a borderless organization, it simply strains belief that they would choose a business-hostile jurisdiction to incorporate under. Hell, I could make some phone calls and have a Hong Kong company up and running by the end of next week. Even if they wanted to stay in Europe for some reason, aren't there friendly jurisdictions like Luxembourg or Andorra or something? The equivalent to Delaware? I smell a rat, someone (or someone's cousin, fraternity brother, etc.) is making some cash off this deal.
You could have RTFA and saved yourself a rant.
"After thorough investigation, the Steering Committee came to the conclusion that a foundation based in Germany would provide the best stability, not only for our users, but also for adopters, developers and enterprises," Foundation founder Florian Effenberger claimed in a statement released today. "To achieve this stability, a capital stock of at least €50,000 is considered best practice in Germany."
In other words they could probably get a €100 company the same as you can in the UK but it is considered best practice to have capital funding (a nominal stock value)
UK is business-hostile? That's news to our GDP. And we don't have an awful lot of silly laws that some countries have that would affect open-source (e.g. software patents, etc.)
According to Wiki, by GDP it goes:
Europe
America
People's Republic of China
Japan
Germany
France
United Kingdom
and has done for the last few years. PRC doesn't have a great record as regards freedom of expression, and there are communications problems in many of the others. I think just from that list, I'd be inclined to use Germany first and then UK too. Germany has a very good reputation for stability and supporting open-source.
Why does a non-profit need stock?
If they are not a business, a business friendly jurisdiction may be exactly where they don't want to incorporate. Privatization of the commons has happened before and may happen again in countries where the law is largely determined by those with the deepest pockets.
Best practice for what, though? That sounds like a rule of thumb for opening a business. If you're going to rent office/shop space, purchase equipment, hire employees and so on and don't expect to be making a profit for a year, then that makes sense.
But this is community based software development we're talking about. Everybody already has their equipment, no office space is needed, and nobody should need to be hired (except if they need a web designer or lawyer temporarily I guess).
So what's all that money for?
As someone married to a specialist small business accountant, I can tell you that the main cause of small business failure is people like you who simply do not allow for nearly enough cash to burn through post-incorporation. (One person IT businesses don't count, they are just a tax avoidance scheme). Fifty thousand euros for a real company suggests a tight budget.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Why does a non-profit need stock?
I would want a good answer to that before I donated any money to them
You just don't have any idea what you are talking about.
If they wanted to, they could have a Germany-based company running for a few Euros - but that is not the point.
As explained on the challenge page ( http://challenge.documentfoundation.org/why/ ) they do have some good reasons to use
a "Stiftungsmodell". The basic thing is, they are not founding a company, they are forming a non-profit.
Quoting from the page:
> Foundations have quite a good tradition in Germany, and the benefits in terms of taxes,
> limited liability and international credibility are high. With the German-based model,
> activities are not limited to one country: the foundation can and will be active worldwide.
A gemeinnuetzige Stiftung is exempt from paying most taxes, and allows tax deductions for donors.
Furthermore ist is a very safe way to organize a community project, quoting again:
> In addition, the German model provides a high security and stability, as the foundation's statutes cannot be changed and,
> therefore, cannot be abused. Setting up a corporation or an association, on the other hand, would expose us to the risk that,
> if a majority of all stakeholders so decided, the statutes could be changed, even as far as removing charitable purposes.
> In order to provide safety and stability, not only for our users, adopters, developers and enterprises, but for the whole community,
> a German-based foundation is ideal.
Assuming a 5% interest rate, the 50k will net them 2.5k in interests per year,
which (the 2.5k) is considered to be the lower limit for having a working Stiftung.
The money stays in the Stiftung, it is not to pay lawyers and stuff ;-)
A "Stiftung" is a legal entity, but not a for-profit company in the usual sense. It's purpose has to be charitable and it's main function usually is to provide funding towards that goal. Plus, they may get tax exception. So the Document Foundation is aiming for creating a legal entity that actually is designed things like what they are doing.
I don't know if there is a minimal amount of money required for creating a Stiftung (I could look that up). But by German law, founding of for-profit companies is difficult. Either you end up liable for your company with everything that you own privately (your house, your car, you name it) or you have to provide a considerable amount of money as initial company funding. The minimum that you can currently get away with is 10000 euros for a Unternehmergesellschaft (haftungsbeschränkt), which has to be raised to 25000 euros during operations. That's not a fee that you pay. It's just the mandated initial capital. So requiring 50000 euros for a Stiftung does not seem out of the ordinary to me.
I know that for example in GB you can get a Ltd. for a few hundred pounds and 1 pound of required minimal capital. But that's not something that you ultimately want: nobody will trust such a company enough to make business with it in good faith. So this required minimum capital is actually a good thing.
http://www.moonlight3d.eu/
Seeing as the article mentions Germany, I was wondering why the hell you were introducing him as The Spammer, it took a moment for me to realise what you really meant.
As an aside, is it unethical to DOS websites advertised by spammers? Not that I have the means, just interested.
It's not required, but a "Stiftung" may not use the money you put in directly, but only the interest from it (and I assume other income). This guarantees that it will basically exist "forever", however it also means you need more money to get started in a sensible way.
well, I will trust a German "Stiftung" more. Mainly irrational reasons based on images of German work ethic., etc. Just donated 25€
It's not just "best practice". They want to setup a so called "Stiftung", which is something like a "Foundation" in the english speaking world. It is a form of business entity that is often used in Germany for non-profit purposes, and most entities that take donations in Germany are some kind of "Stiftung". These kinds of business entities are well protected (like a GmbH or LTD) and donors get a tax refund for their donations.
And for the kind of "Stiftung" they want to set up, they need 50k base capital, as the law in Germany says. As simple as that.
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
I know that for example in GB you can get a Ltd. for a few hundred pounds and 1 pound of required minimal capital. But that's not something that you ultimately want: nobody will trust such a company enough to make business with it in good faith. So this required minimum capital is actually a good thing.
It's even less than that, see the Government site. £20 for a registration in 8-10 days, £50 ($80) for a same day registration, if you send them the form by 15:00. A few friends of mine have done the £20 + £1 version for their mobile app companies, just by following guides online, but no one needs to trust them.
The press release says "Should the race for funds not succeed, The Document Foundation will use the donations to incorporate itself in a different country that requires less capital stock, such as the United Kingdom." -- presumably a UK foundation with, say, £30000 would be OK.
If people went around DoSing these sites, there'd be an easy way to sabotage your competitors' business.
/g/ is where overflow Microsoft astroturfers went. Come back to Slashdot, you wankers! You have already demonstrated the pinnacle of your debating capabilities there, a photoshopped dickbutt comic.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
You can set up a company in the UK same day. I did it, without the same day "express" service and it cost me about £200 all in (that's with "added" services such as a virtual company address etc.)
This is a stupid sum of money, there must be more to this story than initially appears...
Non-profit doesn't mean non-expenses or non-investment. It is still a company, making money and paying its employees.
Okay, it took Detroit 6 days to raise 50k to get a Robocop statue. How long do you think this will take? (http://detroitneedsrobocop.com/ for those interested)
Actually, the minimum capital needed for incorporating a UG (haftungsbeschränkt) is 1 Euro, but you have to feed back 25% of the profit back into the capital of the company. Anyway, the point of this is wholly different than creating a "Stiftung".
"februaru"
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Only PayPal as a payment option?
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
I stuck a tenner in. Why not? I've had infinitely more usage out of that program than I did all the others I've paid for in the past.
And I don't feel like giving *anything* to Oracle at the moment, with their mission to destroy every large open-source project.
With LibreOffice, I wanted it as soon as I heard it, waited for a stable version, tested and deployed and it's now all over my workplace and on my laptop. It fixes problems that have annoyed me in the past and allowed me to open an ANCIENT word-processor file that someone sent my employer where nothing else could. They took the right approach and their first stable was exactly what I wanted.
I shoved some money their way - I don't mind if their office suite and supported formats take over the world, so I don't see why not. Worst that happens is that I've paid some programmer somewhere for a tiny piece of time to compensate for all the features they've given me for nothing.
... when someone is working on "office tools" that are not mere clones of Windows and Excel. I find the MS office tools completely unusable and the more "Open Office" or how you want to call it mimics MS office the less useful it is imho.
E.g. editing a cell in "Excel" or the OO equivalent ... I type and realize the letter in the middle of the word is wrong. I hit left arrow ... and what happens? The curser is not moving left but the cell left of the cell I edited is highlighted. How retarded! I'm in "editing mode" the tool should realize that I want to move the curser and not jump to a different cell. I have to grap the mouse, how disappointing. If I want to finish editing mode I hit return! OFC!
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
But this is community based software development we're talking about. Everybody already has their equipment, no office space is needed, and nobody should need to be hired (except if they need a web designer or lawyer temporarily I guess).
The Mozilla Foundation receives about 90% of its funding - $60 millon a year - through AdSense.
That means a project can have an independent - full time - staff to provide direction and maintain momentum.
The project is more than the code.
Microsoft spends billions on the study of office work and the office worker.
The developer - the geek - can be very distant from the user and at times almost openly hostile and that comes at a price.
You can schedule a room and a projector in Outlook.
It seems a very simple thing, but you won't see the need for it until you have people on your team who have spent some time down in the trenches.
What exactly do you consider business unfriendly in germany or UK. And how do you come to the idea that for an "international" operating software "company" Honkong (which is in China last time I checked map) is of any advantage? .... it is all in the EU they have THE SAME LAWS!
And what exactly is the difference between Andorra/Luxemburg and UK/germany? You have NO CLUE WHATSOEVER
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
In germany it depends whether you want to found a stock company or a company of limited liability. The first one is required to rais funds of 50k â the later one is required to raise 25â (by law).
However you can found a limited company under UK law e.g. in germany where the monetary requirements are lower. But all the other stuff (tax, reporting, publishing etc.) is the same so in general it is discouraged to do that.
The money will be likely wel spend to run a web site and a server ... and after all as I said above: if you want a legal frame you are required to have so much money.
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Law requirement? You seem not to know much about your own country, even there are laws regarding founding of companies or foundations or trusts.
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Vive le REvolution!
Let us show the big corporates that they cannot come in and change things as they seem fit. Sun did a teriffic job with Java and SunOffice before it became OpenOffice and now the community will show Oracle that they can keep their software, we will make it ourselves!
I wish I had $50,000 to give them,I would.Maybe the would accept small donations.
The Mozilla Foundation receives about 90% of its funding - $60 millon a year - through AdSense.
Unlike the right side of a web search result page, I'm not aware of any place in LibreOffice to stick an advertisement without it looking as tacky as the ads in the "lite" version of an application that also has a pay-per-user "deluxe" version.
You can schedule a room and a projector in Outlook.
Isn't that what Mozilla Sunbird or Thunderbird+Lightning is supposed to do?
by GDP it goes
There are multiple metrics related to gross domestic product, and it's wise to consider how population and exchange rates affect how you plan to apply this metric. A country's nominal GDP can be thought of as three components multiplied together: standard of living, exchange rate of currency, and population. In a lot of cases, you want to eliminate population from the formula to convert GDP from an extensive property to an intensive property. GDP per capita eliminates population, penalizing PRC but boosting a few Arab countries (such as Qatar) and tiny countries that outsource their foreign affairs (such as Liechtenstein). GDP per capita measured in Big Mac sandwiches or other measures of purchasing power parity also eliminates the effect of developing markets' temporarily undervalued currencies, and some countries you may not be familiar with rise to the top. There are valid reasons to include or exclude population or exchange rate; just be aware of what reasons apply to each situation.
Europe
America
Neither Europe nor the Americas is a UN-recognized sovereign state, though the EU's status might change with the next round of treaties after Lisbon just as thirteen united States under the Articles of Confederation became one federal United States under the Constitution after roughly a decade.