NumFOCUS fiscal sponsorship agreement
Hi all, Now that the governance document is in place, we need to get our legal ducks in a row by signing a fiscal sponsorship agreement with NumFOCUS. The basic idea here is that there are times when you really need some kind of corporation to represent the project -- the legal system for better or worse does not understand "a bunch of folks on a mailing list" as a legal entity capable of accepting donations, or holding funds or other assets like domain names. The obvious solution is to incorporate a company to represent the project -- but incorporating a company involves lots of super-annoying paperwork. (Like, *super* annoying.) So a standard trick is that a single non-profit corporation acts as an umbrella organization providing these services to multiple projects at once, and this is called "fiscal sponsorship". You can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship NumFOCUS's standard comprehensive FSA agreement can be seen here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11YqMX9UrgfCSgiQEUzmOFyg6Ku-vED6gMxhO6J9l... and we have the option of negotiating changes if there's anything we don't like. They also have a FAQ: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zdXp07dLvkbqBrDsw96P6mkqxnWzKJuM-1f4408I... I've read through the document and didn't see anything that bothered me, except that I'm not quite sure how to make the split between the steering council and numfocus subcommittee that we have in our governance model sync up with their language about the "leadership body", and in particular the language in section 10 about simple majority votes. So I've queried them about that already. In the mean time, I'd encourage anyone with an interest to look it over and speak up if you see anything that you think should be changed before we sign. Cheers, -n -- Nathaniel J. Smith -- http://vorpus.org
Looks good to me. This pretty exciting, actually :-) -CHB Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 7, 2015, at 10:57 PM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
Hi all,
Now that the governance document is in place, we need to get our legal ducks in a row by signing a fiscal sponsorship agreement with NumFOCUS.
The basic idea here is that there are times when you really need some kind of corporation to represent the project -- the legal system for better or worse does not understand "a bunch of folks on a mailing list" as a legal entity capable of accepting donations, or holding funds or other assets like domain names. The obvious solution is to incorporate a company to represent the project -- but incorporating a company involves lots of super-annoying paperwork. (Like, *super* annoying.) So a standard trick is that a single non-profit corporation acts as an umbrella organization providing these services to multiple projects at once, and this is called "fiscal sponsorship". You can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship
NumFOCUS's standard comprehensive FSA agreement can be seen here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11YqMX9UrgfCSgiQEUzmOFyg6Ku-vED6gMxhO6J9l...
and we have the option of negotiating changes if there's anything we don't like.
They also have a FAQ: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zdXp07dLvkbqBrDsw96P6mkqxnWzKJuM-1f4408I...
I've read through the document and didn't see anything that bothered me, except that I'm not quite sure how to make the split between the steering council and numfocus subcommittee that we have in our governance model sync up with their language about the "leadership body", and in particular the language in section 10 about simple majority votes. So I've queried them about that already.
In the mean time, I'd encourage anyone with an interest to look it over and speak up if you see anything that you think should be changed before we sign.
Cheers, -n
-- Nathaniel J. Smith -- http://vorpus.org _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org https://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
Hi, Thanks Nathaniel and everyone else who contributed for pushing forward with formalizing Numpy governance and with this FSA. I'm quite excited about both! Before I start commenting on the FSA, I'd like to point out that I'm both on the numpy steering committee and the NumFOCUS board. I don't see that as a problem for being involved in the discussions or signing the FSA, however I will obviously abstain from voting or (non-)consenting in case of a possible conflict of interest. On Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 7:57 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
Hi all,
Now that the governance document is in place, we need to get our legal ducks in a row by signing a fiscal sponsorship agreement with NumFOCUS.
The basic idea here is that there are times when you really need some kind of corporation to represent the project -- the legal system for better or worse does not understand "a bunch of folks on a mailing list" as a legal entity capable of accepting donations,
Additional clarification: NumFOCUS is a 501(c)3 organization, which means that in the US donations that are tax-deductable can be made to it (and hence to Numpy after this FSA is signed). From European or other countries donations can be made, but they won't be deductable.
or holding funds or other assets like domain names. The obvious solution is to incorporate a company to represent the project -- but incorporating a company involves lots of super-annoying paperwork. (Like, *super* annoying.) So a standard trick is that a single non-profit corporation acts as an umbrella organization providing these services to multiple projects at once, and this is called "fiscal sponsorship". You can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship
NumFOCUS's standard comprehensive FSA agreement can be seen here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11YqMX9UrgfCSgiQEUzmOFyg6Ku-vED6gMxhO6J9l...
There's one upcoming change to this FSA: the overhead percentage (now 4-7%) charged will go up significantly, to around 10-15%. Re4ason: NumFOCUS cannot cover its admin/legal costs as well as support its projects based on what the doc says now. This is still at the lower end of the scale for non-profits, and universities typically charge way more on grants. So I don't see any issue here, but it's good to know now rather than right after we sign.
and we have the option of negotiating changes if there's anything we don't like.
They also have a FAQ:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zdXp07dLvkbqBrDsw96P6mkqxnWzKJuM-1f4408I...
I've read through the document and didn't see anything that bothered me, except that I'm not quite sure how to make the split between the steering council and numfocus subcommittee that we have in our governance model sync up with their language about the "leadership body", and in particular the language in section 10 about simple majority votes. So I've queried them about that already.
I'd like to clarify that the Numfocus subcommittee is only meant to facility interaction with NumFOCUS and to ensure that if funds are spent, they are spent in a way consistent with the mission and non-profit nature of NumFOCUS. The same applies to possible legal impacts of decisions made in the Numpy project. Regarding the question about the "simple majority votes" language, we can simply replace that with the appropriate text describing how decisions are made in the Numpy project. Cheers, Ralf
On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 11:01 PM, Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
Thanks Nathaniel and everyone else who contributed for pushing forward with formalizing Numpy governance and with this FSA. I'm quite excited about both!
Before I start commenting on the FSA, I'd like to point out that I'm both on the numpy steering committee and the NumFOCUS board. I don't see that as a problem for being involved in the discussions or signing the FSA, however I will obviously abstain from voting or (non-)consenting in case of a possible conflict of interest.
On Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 7:57 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
Hi all,
Now that the governance document is in place, we need to get our legal ducks in a row by signing a fiscal sponsorship agreement with NumFOCUS.
The basic idea here is that there are times when you really need some kind of corporation to represent the project -- the legal system for better or worse does not understand "a bunch of folks on a mailing list" as a legal entity capable of accepting donations,
Additional clarification: NumFOCUS is a 501(c)3 organization, which means that in the US donations that are tax-deductable can be made to it (and hence to Numpy after this FSA is signed). From European or other countries donations can be made, but they won't be deductable.
or holding funds or other assets like domain names. The obvious solution is to incorporate a company to represent the project -- but incorporating a company involves lots of super-annoying paperwork. (Like, *super* annoying.) So a standard trick is that a single non-profit corporation acts as an umbrella organization providing these services to multiple projects at once, and this is called "fiscal sponsorship". You can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship
NumFOCUS's standard comprehensive FSA agreement can be seen here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11YqMX9UrgfCSgiQEUzmOFyg6Ku-vED6gMxhO6J9l...
There's one upcoming change to this FSA: the overhead percentage (now 4-7%) charged will go up significantly, to around 10-15%. Re4ason: NumFOCUS cannot cover its admin/legal costs as well as support its projects based on what the doc says now. This is still at the lower end of the scale for non-profits, and universities typically charge way more on grants. So I don't see any issue here, but it's good to know now rather than right after we sign.
and we have the option of negotiating changes if there's anything we don't like.
They also have a FAQ:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zdXp07dLvkbqBrDsw96P6mkqxnWzKJuM-1f4408I...
I've read through the document and didn't see anything that bothered me, except that I'm not quite sure how to make the split between the steering council and numfocus subcommittee that we have in our governance model sync up with their language about the "leadership body", and in particular the language in section 10 about simple majority votes. So I've queried them about that already.
I'd like to clarify that the Numfocus subcommittee is only meant to facility interaction with NumFOCUS and to ensure that if funds are spent, they are spent in a way consistent with the mission and non-profit nature of NumFOCUS. The same applies to possible legal impacts of decisions made in the Numpy project.
Regarding the question about the "simple majority votes" language, we can simply replace that with the appropriate text describing how decisions are made in the Numpy project.
Hi all, there wasn't much feedback on this FSA, but I want to point out that it's actually quite important for the project. Maybe everyone already thought about this when the governance model was agreed on (it does include a NumFOCUS subcommittee after all), but if not: read / think /ask question fast, because we're moving forward with signing of the agreement with the people listed at http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy-dev/dev/governance/people.html#numfocus-subc.... Cheers, Ralf
Hi all, On Wed, Oct 28, 2015 at 11:48 PM, Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all, there wasn't much feedback on this FSA, but I want to point out that it's actually quite important for the project.
Maybe everyone already thought about this when the governance model was agreed on (it does include a NumFOCUS subcommittee after all), but if not: read / think /ask question fast, because we're moving forward with signing of the agreement with the people listed at http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy-dev/dev/governance/people.html#numfocus-subc....
The document is now signed. No other project with an FSA seems to have done this (yet), but I think it would be good to publish the FSA. Either on numpy.org, scipy.org or numfocus.org. Any objections/concerns about that? +1's from the people that signed would be good to have before moving forward. Cheers, Ralf
+1 to posting it as part of the documentation. I also like the idea of numfocus hosting the whole collection of them locally so that we can just link to them. On Sat, Oct 31, 2015, 19:01 Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
On Wed, Oct 28, 2015 at 11:48 PM, Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all, there wasn't much feedback on this FSA, but I want to point out that it's actually quite important for the project.
Maybe everyone already thought about this when the governance model was agreed on (it does include a NumFOCUS subcommittee after all), but if not: read / think /ask question fast, because we're moving forward with signing of the agreement with the people listed at http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy-dev/dev/governance/people.html#numfocus-subc....
The document is now signed. No other project with an FSA seems to have done this (yet), but I think it would be good to publish the FSA. Either on numpy.org, scipy.org or numfocus.org. Any objections/concerns about that?
+1's from the people that signed would be good to have before moving forward.
Cheers, Ralf
_______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org https://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
On Oct 31, 2015 4:01 PM, "Ralf Gommers" <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
On Wed, Oct 28, 2015 at 11:48 PM, Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all, there wasn't much feedback on this FSA, but I want to point out that it's actually quite important for the project.
Maybe everyone already thought about this when the governance model was agreed on (it does include a NumFOCUS subcommittee after all), but if not: read / think /ask question fast, because we're moving forward with signing of the agreement with the people listed at http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy-dev/dev/governance/people.html#numfocus-subc....
The document is now signed. No other project with an FSA seems to have done this (yet), but I think it would be good to publish the FSA. Either on numpy.org, scipy.org or numfocus.org. Any objections/concerns about that?
+1's from the people that signed would be good to have before moving forward.
+1 from me, with the proviso that most project FSAs probably contain individual contributor's home addresses, which should be redacted just in case. (Correctly redacting PDFs is notoriously tricky [1], but it looks like recent versions of e.g. Acrobat have tools that take appropriate care [2].) -n [1] http://blog.foxitsoftware.com/how-to-properly-redact-pdf-files/ [2] https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/removing-sensitive-content-pdfs.html
On Sun, Nov 1, 2015 at 12:53 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On Oct 31, 2015 4:01 PM, "Ralf Gommers" <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
On Wed, Oct 28, 2015 at 11:48 PM, Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com>
Hi all, there wasn't much feedback on this FSA, but I want to point out
wrote: that it's actually quite important for the project.
Maybe everyone already thought about this when the governance model was
agreed on (it does include a NumFOCUS subcommittee after all), but if not: read / think /ask question fast, because we're moving forward with signing of the agreement with the people listed at http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy-dev/dev/governance/people.html#numfocus-subc... .
The document is now signed. No other project with an FSA seems to have done this (yet), but I think it would be good to publish the FSA. Either on numpy.org, scipy.org or numfocus.org. Any objections/concerns about that?
+1's from the people that signed would be good to have before moving forward.
+1 from me, with the proviso that most project FSAs probably contain individual contributor's home addresses, which should be redacted just in case.
Ours doesn't contain any home addressed, and I don't think the ones for other projects do either (didn't check yet). Ralf
(Correctly redacting PDFs is notoriously tricky [1], but it looks like recent versions of e.g. Acrobat have tools that take appropriate care [2].)
-n
[1] http://blog.foxitsoftware.com/how-to-properly-redact-pdf-files/ [2] https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/removing-sensitive-content-pdfs.html _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org https://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
On Sat, Oct 31, 2015 at 4:57 PM, Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2015 at 12:53 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On Oct 31, 2015 4:01 PM, "Ralf Gommers" <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
On Wed, Oct 28, 2015 at 11:48 PM, Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all, there wasn't much feedback on this FSA, but I want to point out that it's actually quite important for the project.
Maybe everyone already thought about this when the governance model was agreed on (it does include a NumFOCUS subcommittee after all), but if not: read / think /ask question fast, because we're moving forward with signing of the agreement with the people listed at http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy-dev/dev/governance/people.html#numfocus-subc....
The document is now signed. No other project with an FSA seems to have done this (yet), but I think it would be good to publish the FSA. Either on numpy.org, scipy.org or numfocus.org. Any objections/concerns about that?
+1's from the people that signed would be good to have before moving forward.
+1 from me, with the proviso that most project FSAs probably contain individual contributor's home addresses, which should be redacted just in case.
Ours doesn't contain any home addressed, and I don't think the ones for other projects do either (didn't check yet).
Yes it does -- one of the things to fill in on the FSA template is the "project mailing address", and since most projects don't actually have one of those, the advice is to pick some contributor's address and use that. -n -- Nathaniel J. Smith -- http://vorpus.org
On Sun, Nov 1, 2015 at 1:00 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On Sat, Oct 31, 2015 at 4:57 PM, Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2015 at 12:53 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On Oct 31, 2015 4:01 PM, "Ralf Gommers" <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
On Wed, Oct 28, 2015 at 11:48 PM, Ralf Gommers <
wrote:
Hi all, there wasn't much feedback on this FSA, but I want to point
out
that it's actually quite important for the project.
Maybe everyone already thought about this when the governance model was agreed on (it does include a NumFOCUS subcommittee after all), but if not: read / think /ask question fast, because we're moving forward with signing of the agreement with the people listed at
http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy-dev/dev/governance/people.html#numfocus-subc... .
The document is now signed. No other project with an FSA seems to have done this (yet), but I think it would be good to publish the FSA. Either on numpy.org, scipy.org or numfocus.org. Any objections/concerns about
ralf.gommers@gmail.com> that?
+1's from the people that signed would be good to have before moving forward.
+1 from me, with the proviso that most project FSAs probably contain individual contributor's home addresses, which should be redacted just in case.
Ours doesn't contain any home addressed, and I don't think the ones for other projects do either (didn't check yet).
Yes it does -- one of the things to fill in on the FSA template is the "project mailing address", and since most projects don't actually have one of those, the advice is to pick some contributor's address and use that.
That was pretty well hidden (I searched for "address" and "mailing") but found it now, thanks. So good point, home addresses will need redacting. Ralf
participants (4)
-
Chris Barker - NOAA Federal -
Nathaniel Smith -
Ralf Gommers -
Thomas Caswell