Fedora EMEA e.V. (was: Re: [Ambassadors] Re: What Fedora makes sucking for me - or why I am NOT Fedora)

[Max Spevack]

On Tue, 9 Dec 2008, Mathieu Bridon (bochecha) wrote:

>>> Fedora EMEA e.V. also seems to be a mostly dead tree. Of course we 
>>> have founded the association as legal vehicle. But it would be nice 
>>> to see where
>>
>> Interesting, I thought that it was going well.  Perhaps you should 
>> ask FAmSCo to enlighten us here?
>
> I haver the same issue with EMEA as Robert. I'm french, we have our 
> own association (and had it before the creation of EMEA). Our fee is 
> 20?. EMEA is 128?. Guess which one I (and each and every french 
> people) adhered to ?
>
> About them not being transparent enough, I must admit that I didn't 
> try to interest myself about what they are doing, mainly because I 
> will not adhere to it as long as the fee is so prohibitively high. For 
> now, they are (to me) only a way to acquire really nice poloshirts 
> (and thank you Joerg for taking care of that :)

Personally, I don't care at all about the membership fee for Fedora EMEA 
e.V.  The value to me is not in getting Euros from already existing 
Fedora members.  The membership fee could be 1 EUR, and I wouldn't care.

The value of Fedora-fr's organization and Fedora EMEA e.V. is that they 
are LEGAL ENTITIES that can hold resources, and that can accept 
resources from multiple parties.

Read over my email from yesterday about the Q4 budget.  The fact that in 
EMEA, I can have Red Hat make one money transfer of budget to another 
legal entity's bank account makes my life so much easier, and it means 
that even if we don't spend all the money in one quarter, it doesn't 
disappear.  These non-profit organizations:

(a) allow us to do a better job planning our expenses

(b) allow non-Red Hat organizations to give money directly to the Fedora 
Project without requiring them to give money to Red Hat, which is a very 
important detail.

I believe that we are incredibly transparent about the manner in which 
our budget is spent.  From the moment I became the Fedora Project Leader 
in February 2006, I have tracked the budget that I manage publicly on 
the Fedora wiki.

If there are specific questions that you (or anyone) has, feel free to 
list them and I will do my best to answer.

--Max