Candidate Q&A - List of Questions

[Alex Deucher]

On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 12:05 PM, Egbert Eich <eich at freedesktop.org> wrote:
>
> Watching this discussion more from the side so far I've got some
> questions/remarks to make regarding some of the questions:
>
> On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 12:31:16PM +0100, Matthias Hopf wrote:
>
>> 13) What do you think about this questionnaire? Should this initiative be
>>     repeated, and do you have any suggestions for such future repeats?
>>
>
> At one previous election there was an open discussion Q/A session taking
> place here on this list. Questions were asked and answered directly. Would
> be great if this happened again.
>
>> 16) The Xorg Foundation has been working on getting 501(c)3 non-profit status
>>     for a while now.  Would you be interested in getting involved with this
>>     work?
>>
>
> I'm not sure if anyone who has never been involved with board work is aware
> of what this involves.
>
>>
>> 18) Non-profit corporations have certain requirements with respect to where
>>     their funding comes from depending on the type of non-profit they are.
>>     Should the Xorg Foundation actively solicit donations from the community to
>>     fund it's activities (developer conferences, travel expenses,
>>     infrastructure expenses, etc.)?
>
> I'm not sure if anyone here is aware of those 'certain requirements' I'm
> at least a little at a loss what this is referring to.
> Therefore I would like to encourage the person who came up with this
> question to elaborate a little on this.
> Please also specify what the term 'community' is referring to in this
> context.

Sorry, meant to reply to this sooner, but it got lost in my inbox.
There are two types of non-profit corporations: a public charity and a
private foundation.  Each has certain advantages and disadvantages
associated with it.  I don't remember all the details off hand, I need
to dig up my notes from the discussions with SFLC; I brought this up
in one of the board meetings last year.  The main difference between
the two with respect to funding is that public charities are required
to raise a certain percentage of their funding from the public
(non-corporate donations) while private foundations do not.  However,
according to SFLC, it's preferable in Xorg's case to be a public
charity based on the type of work we do and the way we spend out
money.  For the community, I mean the individuals in the open source
community that are interested in Xorg.

Alex

>
>>
>> 19) If you agree with the soliciting funding from the community, would you be
>>     interested in taking on a role to help reach that end?  If so, what ideas
>>     do you have for soliciting these donations?  If you don't agree, where
>>     should the Xorg foundation look to get it's funding?
>
> Same applies here.
>
>>
>> 20) With new platforms such as android and programs like wayland, some would
>>     say X is becoming less relevant.  Do you agree with that statement?  Where
>>     do you see X going in the future?
>>
>
> This seems to be a question about views on future technical directions, the
> board however has kept out of technical aspects regarding the X Window System
> or competing technologies in the past.
>
> Cheers,
>        Egbert.
>
>
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