Nothing can save the browser. It needs to be replaced by FF official. Ie. pay someone to maintain it -like RH pays someone for ff wayland- and sort out all the shortcomings of the OS (compositor etc).
2 Likes
A “Verein” does not have to pay taxes (=theft) because a Verein MUST NOT earn even 1 cent. Otherwise they put you in a cage. I’m quite educated about Austrian “Vereinsrecht”, I run some and am part of many.
I think you are quite aware of this @apozaf. But for the others. Austrian and German “Vereine” are different. For tax exemption in Germany a “Verein” would have to be “gemeinnützig”, sort of like “approved non profit” to avoid taxes. I am not a lawyer, though and Switzerland differs again.
(And I see taxes a bit different, but respect your view on that. 
)
1 Like
Thank you very much!
The relative ease of starting a “Gemeinütziger Verein” in Germany doesn’t differ so much. Points 1, 2,3, 4, 5, 7, basically the same. 8 is a bit different, but changing a ‘Vorstand’ can be done as the Statutes specify. In practice, it’s whoever has the time 
As you’ve elaborated Foundation is far more complex (about the same capital requirements, etc) and as for all you’re other points, I could get behind all of them, even if I tend to be a GPL purist.
Given how similar the situation in Austria is to Germany, I don’t see any issues on that side. I’d be very happy to get behind a non-profit association (er, a club ), a ‘Gemeinnütziger Verein’.
In any case, it would be great if we had at least ONE such legal entity. I would join in some capacity.
This isn’t exactly true. A non-profit (take netzpolitik.org) can earn a million euros a year. It must, within some reasonable limit, spend that money for the purposes of the Verein. In practice, that can mean taking donations and paying staff, making things, planting trees, you name it. It is also abused as a tax dodge.
My point being, as long as capital does not accumulate, you can earn it to considerable sums. Sometimes, if you become politically dangerous, you may have your ‘non-profit’ status revoked (see campact in Germany recently). Doesn’t really matter here, though.
As promised, here is the first draft of the association statutes:
It is deliberately in English so everyone in the forum can read it and share thoughts about it. Once we are satisfied with it I will translate it (and publish the translation here too) and send it to the Associations Authority.
You don’t need an account to modify or comment the text. Please comment instead of changing the text. There is also an integrated chat.
Important matter, the name. The word Sailfish is a Jolla trademark so I’m unsure if we can use it in the name of the association (ie: Sailfish Association). I suggest the name “Sailmakers association”, keep the suggestions going, then I can set a poll at the end of the week with all answer so we can pick one.
8 Likes
Thank you very much for the effort!
How about “Sailmates“, as we’re all metaphorically in the same boat, and intend to create this in friendly cooperation with the sailors at Jolla?
1 Like
Sail maker is a venerable trade. One of the view people on the planet who share my name is also a sail maker.
Looks very cool @jojo.
One comment I have is perhaps to consider making the association’s goals a bit wider, i.e. not just aim at SFOS, but aim at mobile Linux in general. Even if in practice most of the efforts are spent on SFOS.
This would help attracting funding and donations, as Linux is free and open whereas a few components of SFOS are not.
It would also help attracting members from other small communities (e.g. postmarketOS or Maemo Laeste) who would be interested in developing common GPLed (or similar) components for mobile Linux and porting applications to run on e.g. Glacier, which is essentially SFOS without any non-free code.
1 Like
Hi @hildon , indeed in the doc some comments are about not naming SFOS directly but instead “free open source operating systems for mobile terminals” which i agree too.
5 Likes
Hi guys and thank you for your big efforts!
I hope I don’t interrupt your discussion, don’t know if it’s the right time to give my two cents.
I would be interested in becoming a member of the organization and helping to work on @poetaster list on point number 2,3,4.
2 Likes
Since a name for the association has not been yet defined, here are the two suggestions given.
- Sailmakers
- Sailmates
0 voters
Though one can easily see that real capital may bring changes to Jolla ('s company policies & mindset), especially this year, I doubt that any “intellectual capital” will, which is not monetarily valuable.
Plus (the likely anticipated point), Jolla’s heading WRT licensing, acceptable licenses, community interactions (with users, app developers and SailfishOS contributors) etc. has been quite steady over the past 10 years. Though the community interactions have been slightly but continuously improving over the last two years, I cannot see that the interactions with the developer community may ever reach the level and scope of, e.g., Fedora’s developer community and RedHat (now: IBM) employees.
now @olf will convince me otherwise
Not really, everybody is free to believe whatever one likes.
I am fine with being able to state what I consider as probable and to reason why.
But more seriously …
… while reading this discussion thread, it became apparent that many considerations have been addressing the “How?” (possible legal forms of a “cooperative”, requirements for that, properties of different legal forms etc.), but the “Why?” and more specifically the “What for?” (goals, purposes, envisioned actions etc. of the “cooperative”) has been only fuzzily sketched at the start of this thread.
IMO it is crucial to answer this triple (goals, purposes and envisioned actions) first, at best accompanied by some statements delimiting the scope of these goals, purposes and actions of the “cooperative” (i.e., what is not within its scope).
Some very basic questions which come to my mind WRT “goals, purposes and actions”:
- Is the “cooperative” primarily addressing SailfishOS users, i.e., basically an “international SailfishOS User Group (iSOUG)”?
Then (“goals”) it might facilitate sharing experiences and tricks among users, plus being the voice of the users to Jolla.
But which capabilities (“actions”) may such a “SOUG” provide, this forum (FSO) does not already provide for SailfishOS users? - Is the “cooperative” primarily addressing SailfishOS developers?
This brings a mostly different set of goals, purposes and actions to the “cooperative”. - Another idea proposed in the opening message of this thread (and picked up once or twice), was that the purpose of the “cooperation” is to collect funding and pay for development work. For this the scope must be clearly delimited:
- OS and / or apps?
- Invest into work for Jolla provided components / community components / new components?
- Invest into work specific to devices supported by Jolla and / or specific to devices supported by community porters or no device-specific work at all?
- Fund SailfishOS porting work for new devices?
- Or a mix of the aforementioned points; that is fine, as long it is clearly defined what exactly comprises this mix.
- Maybe someone thinks of a set of goals, purposes and actions of the “cooperative” I did not touch here?
2 Likes
To keep it brief, I certainly see a mix. One set of goals is to support the mapping developers with infrastructure which can, in turn, extend their ability to support end users. That’s not SFOS specific. Some SFOS specific work, the calendar, for instance, might contribute up stream.
I believe your correct that carefully delimiting the goals and then prioritizing them is important.
1 Like
My own personal agenda is to bring more public funding, donations and to attract developers to make mobile Linux a viable alternative to iOS and Android.
So @olf, to answer your questions, personally I would:
-
Try to address all mobile Linux users, not just SFOS
-
Invest in apps, but also OS components, where needed
7 Likes
Hi olf, glad you asked those questions, they were asked in the document during it’s redaction too.
This is the first goal yes although it wasnt specified so in the association’s text in order not to block actions in the future if tables turn.
The association is not some kind of union to defend users interest. It’s a form of using member’s contribution for financing projects arround SFOS (you can see dcalist list above)
Do you mean as, by developers for developers ? Where devs would gather together for some reason ? No. It’s for everyone.
Those are questions members will have to vote for. We cannot specify such things in the statutes or we would limit the association’s goals. IE: we identify a desperate need for this functionality in SFOS but we said in our statutes that we would only finance apps.
Feel free to read and contribute to the statutes (link above) if you already haven’t.
and what I said is no definitive truth. Things can change and dont need to follow my sole opinion. That’s why members vote.
Hmmm. Trying to do comments (using the bubble tool in the toolbar) having selected texts to comment on didn’t work for me? I could reply to existing comments.
Ah, got it. I was selecting things that had already been commented on by extending the selection too far.
1 Like