Re: Release Candidate of the PostgreSQL Europe association statutes

Le Sunday 13 January 2008 23:14:30 Gabriele Bartolini, vous avez écrit :
> Ciao Dave,
>
> Dave Page ha scritto:
> > Yes!! That's almost exactly what I just wrote to Andreas :-)
>
> ;)
>
> > If others are in agreement, can the rules be reworked to allow for this?
>
> I don't know if it is worth writing it in the statute. I am asking the
> French guys to confirm this. In Italy, you try and define the main goals
> and the management issues in the statute. The more practical and
> operative issues are left in an external document, which can be flexibly
> (but democratically) changed.

Exactly.

>
> This is because a change in the statute comes at a price: you need to
> deposit again to the official authorities and pay taxes. Maybe if France
> this is not the case, but I guess it is worth asking.
>

Changing the statutes will be a pain and it will cost money, no doubt about
that.

Here's some more information about how membership fee works in the pgfr
association. An active member can be an individual, an association or a
company. The membership fee is different for each : individuals have to pay
20€, associations have to pay 200€ , companies have to pay 400€. These prices
are not defined in the statutes.

By the way, from my point of view money is not the key. I agree with what Dave
said in the first place : for an Open-Source project having many contributors
is far more important than having a big bank account. However money can be
useful in some cases and self-funding is a mean of Independence.

But maybe there's a third way that can get us out of this issue. Let's say
that instead a setting a standard membership free, we propose a "free
membership fee". I mean : any member is free to pay what he wants or what
you can give.

Let's call that "WYCIWYG membership" : What You Can Is What You Give :P

With this system there would be no frustration :

- a person from a country with no local user group could say : « there's no
association my country so i'm joining the European Group and i pay the
membership fee that i can afford »

- a french speaking person who is already member of pgfr could say : « ok
i'm already paying the pgfr membership , and pgfr gives money to the European
Group, so i'm only giving a symbolic fee of 1€ to the European association »

Of course this proposition doesn't solve the bottom-line issue which is ( if
i understand correctly ) : Do we want a federal organization or a
transnational organization or both ? But the main advantage of the "free
membership fee" is that it works in the 3 cases :-) The second advantage is
that we don't have to change the statutes to make it happen.

Good night !

--
damien clochard
http://dalibo.org | http://dalibo.com