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

Mathieu Bridon (bochecha) bochecha at fedoraproject.org
Tue Dec 9 12:29:56 UTC 2008


> 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.

Well, for some people, there's a huge difference between spending 1€ and
128€.

> 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.

True, and I never denied it. It is really important that everywhere, local
communities can create legal entities for all the reason you listed, as
well as:

(c) be a legal, structured and credible reprentative in front of the
countries / universities / companies / ...

> 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.

Well, I did said that I wasn't commenting the "transparency issue" in EMEA
as I myself didn't even try to look at what they were doing. The reason: I
simply can't go and see how transparent are all the NPOs I'm not a member
of ^_^

About the way you manage the Fedora Project budget, well, I'd love that if
my employer would manage it the same way, and as transparently as you do.
:)

But that's the Fedora Project budget, and the EMEA budget is only a part
of it.

Anyway, this might have been the least important part of my own message,
and I'm truly sorry if it offended you. All I said is that the fee is way
too high for all the interested people to subscribe. I didn't want to
raise any transparency issue. If that's how you understood my message,
then I'm going back to learn english all over again :)

Regards,


----------

Mathieu Bridon (bochecha)
French Fedora Ambassador

----------
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~Benjamin Franklin




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