Inkscape will make a donation of $400 per year to the Software Freedom Conservancy in recognition of service to the project for the period from 2009 to the end of 2012. This totals $1600. This amount will be paid immediately.
Further, while we are not technically required to start paying the 10% fee until the new FSA takes effect, we will provide a donation of 10% of our net income from that point back retroactively to December 2012 when the FSA discussions initiated. This amount will be calculated and paid when the new FSA becomes official.
Neither of these donations shall be described or referenced in the text of the new FSA.
A majority vote of the current board members is required for the following proposal relating to retroactive payment to SFC.
| Board Member | 1. | 2. | 3. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bryce Harrington | Y | e | N |
| Tavmjong Bah | Y | c | e |
| Josh Andler | Y | c | N |
| Jon Cruz | Y | e | N |
| Ted Gould | Y | e | |
Tav writes, """ I agree with Josh and Ted that a donation to the SFC is appropriate for their past work on our behalf. Can we agree on the amount? I would propose $400 for each year we have been a member. We have been a member for 9 years so that would be $3600.
This assumes that the 10% kicks in on the date the new FSA is approved. """
We were asked by Bradley to provide 10% of our revenue to SFC in 2012:
(b) As I've discussed with a number of you, including Jon, Josh and
Tavmjong, Inkscape has received fiscal sponsorship services
from Conservancy at no charge since 2006. Back when
Conservancy was founded, I was an SFLC employee and SFLC was
subsidizing my time -- effectively donating staff time to
Conservancy. This ceased in early 2008, and I served as a
volunteer for Conservancy on nights/weekends until 2011, when I
became a full-time employee -- which was the only way to keep
it going with the services it promises (the other option would
have been to shut down Conservancy). Since then, to maintain
legal services as part of the service plan once SFLC shrunk
further, we hired Tony as well. We get a lot done with a staff
of two, but obviously we need financial resources to be able to
provide these services.
Conservancy's Board of Directors voted about a year ago that
all member projects should be required to give 10% of their
earmarked revenue to support Conservancy to continue to provide
services. This is a standard way for a fiscal sponsor to
operate, and we were lucky before that we weren't required to
do this, and I'd been waiting to bother Inkscape with this
since you are one of our older members. (We haven't taken a new
member for anything other than 10% in a few years, BTW). I
hope a 10% arrangement as we use with other projects now will
be acceptable to you, and I and Tony are happy to discuss
further this issue.In December 2012, we voted generally favorable to paying the 10% fee going forward from 2012. There were questions regarding pass-thru of Google SOC payments and so on, but generally favored the basic idea:
https://sourceforge.net/p/inkscape/mailman/inkscape-board/?viewmonth=201212For comparison, Software in the Public Interest (SPI), an organization similar to the SFC, provides a similar class of services, and takes 5% of net (after credit card, etc. fees) for SPI.
http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/associated-project-howto/