Interest to create a cooperative

[olf]

… 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?

[poetaster]

@olf

Or a mix of the aforementioned points; that is fine, as long it is clearly defined what exactly comprises this mix.

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.

[hildon]

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

[jojo]

Hi olf, glad you asked those questions, they were asked in the document during it’s redaction too.

@olf

Is the “cooperative” primarily addressing SailfishOS users, i.e., basically an “international SailfishOS User Group (iSOUG)”?

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.

@olf

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?

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)

@olf

Is the “cooperative” primarily addressing SailfishOS developers?
This brings a mostly different set of goals, purposes and actions to the “cooperative”.

Do you mean as, by developers for developers ? Where devs would gather together for some reason ? No. It’s for everyone.

@olf

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?

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.

[jojo]

and what I said is no definitive truth. Things can change and dont need to follow my sole opinion. That’s why members vote.

[poetaster]

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.

[poetaster]

Ah, got it. I was selecting things that had already been commented on by extending the selection too far.

[olf]

@jojo

Feel free to read and contribute to the statutes (link above) if you already haven’t.

Oh, I saw but then forgot to follow that link, because this discussion thread has become lengthy and convoluted.
I will try to take a closer look at it (and likely comment) next week.

To provide the Etherpad / Cryptpad link to the draft of the statutes for this association again:

Encrypted Rich text

[jojo]

One week after posting the association’s name poll, we’ve got a winner : “Sailmates” (congratulation @harbourlights for the name)

Since all comments were answered in the cryptpad statutes, I will start translating the document and will post it here again (this time in German).

The remaining steps are :

• Posting the official doc in German
• Write the annex document with founders’ names
  (both documents need to be send to the Association’s Authority)

Regarding the latter point, if you wish to be part of the founding members, i need your original signature on the original annex document. Therefore, it will be easier if you are coming to the Austrian meeting because I’ll bring the documents and you can sign it there.

If you aren’t, this is the other solution:

• I’ll send you the document with die Post (Austrian postal services) - or the PDF and you print it.
• so you sign them and either
  • send them back (if you are the only person abroad)
  • or send them to the next person abroad, last one sends it back to me
• I bring the signed document to the Austrian meeting for the remaining interested people to sign

The required information that I need from all founding members are :

• Full name
• Date of birth
• Place of birth
• Correspondence address
  (only the information, not a copy of your ID or your electricity bill)

As you can see it’s not the simplest solution. So to be sure to receive the signed annex document before the 8th October, I need the information by next Wednesday. Good think is, no need to sign the statutes only the annex document so even if the German correction of the statutes is not ready by Wednesday, I can still send the annex document.

Unfortunately, due to the “short” time frame, it wouldn’t be safe to send the document outside of EU, due to postal delivery delays (ie: Austria → Canada → Japan → Austria would take some time). So I will have to limit the founding members to the EU.

EDIT: Of course you can MP/Telegram/Signal/SMS me this information.

[jojo]

Here is the link for the German official document:

Encrypted Rich text

For German speakers, please do not correct directly on the document but instead write a comment.

• To comment, select the text (it should not already be selected) and click the comment button that will appear under your selection.
• To view comments on an already selected/highlighted text, just click on it.

[harbourlights]

Happy to have contributed - all best for the Sailmates!

[Speedy-10]

Hi, I’m interested in the “Verein” to support software development. Is it already possible to join the Verein?
One more question: If you implement better packages or solve bugs in the SFOS, how is guaranteed, that Jolla will “accept the neccesary pull-requests”?

[flypig]

I think it’s fair to say that there’s no guarantee a particular pull-request will be accepted. After a pull request is created, it will be reviewed by one or more developers from Jolla, who may ask for changes and it’s quite common for a pull request to go through more than one review round.

We have an “Open Pull Requests” section each community meeting that’s set aside for raising pull requests that have got stuck for whatever reason, or need discussion. You or anyone else is always welcome to raise something there.

[jojo]

Hi Speedy, I’m so sorry, I was sure I had replied to your comment. We are finishing a few things to be able to open to everyone else (bureaucracy mostly).

PS: We never thought our pull requests would get guaranteed acception from Jolla. First because, when someone does a pull request, the reviewer has to review the code. But most importantly because Jolla is the owner of the repo.

[Speedy-10]

Hi jojo,
ok, I write it more diplomatically:
I hope that Jolla will check all pull-requests promptly and in the interest of Jolla and the community will do them soon (if there are no problems).

[vlagged]

And it happened Join the Sailmates association!

[hildon]

Some relevant discussion to a possible co-op for Sailfish: Our current FOSS dystopia | Lobsters

[hildon]

Also interesting to read: HashiCorp switching to BSL shows a need for open charter companies