[scribus-dev] Scribus e.V.: application form and letterhead

["Christoph Schäfer"]

Salut Louis,

>
> I wonder if it would be possible to have a short (non "legal" or "formal")
> name for the association, something without "e.V" that I understand is ok
> t= o
> deal with the bank and the court but is not much of appeal to ordinary
> people, especially outside Germany. Here in Qu=E9bec/Canada the logos of
> th= e
> enterprises for instance don't have to bear everything, inclunding the
> letters "inc." (for "incorporated"). So, a company such as "Bell Canada
> Incorporated" (it may even be longer than that!) can do business under the
> logo "Bell" only. Of course, the fine print tells it all extensively but
> what people see is "Bell" (this is not meant as a publicity!!!). ;-)

What would be the alternative? Adding e.V. is absolutely normal in Germany, because it indicates that one is dealing with an organsiation, not a corporation (unless the e.V. is a corporation, but this is rarely the case, as a GmbH (LLC in English) makes more sense for a company). Using only "Scribus" would be misleading, IMHO, as "Scribus" is the term for the Scribus project, which is no legal entity.

I don't think this is an issue, as the major part of our conversations happens via e-mail and IRC. The letterhead would mostly be used for correspondence with other legal entities.

But if someone has a better idea, I'll gladly support it.

>
> Also, I believe it is meant to put the whole Scribus logo on the
> letterhead= ,
> right? Here, what I see is only the pen.

I made this on purpose, because I expect the template to be used with b/w laser printers. Plus, the circled logo is quite old, and Andy Fitzsimon has created a new splash screen with a more elegant pen, which is the one used in the letterhead. If we had a new circled logo with the new pen that would print without issues in b/w, we can replace it any time.

>
> As for the fees I think it's ok but I am including here the link to AFUL
> (Francophone association of Linux users). Interestingly, they have made it
> clear people can offer more! Their price list starts lower, however, for
> people, and is higher for companies. I have no issue with what Christoph
> suggests but some students may find it high? I cannot tell. Only more food
> for thoughts.

We could check what KDE asks for (since they already are a German non-profit). As for voluntary higher fees, I think this could be done via donations. Again, I think we should keep everything as simple as possible. Fixed fees plus donations is probably easier to handle in accounting than variable fees.

>
> The info here is in French but it is not so hard to follow, I think (I
> hope), even for non-French-readers.
> http://www.aful.org/association/cotisation
>
> Would it be possible to get some advice from, say, the FSF or the GNOME
> Foundation for the Application form? I believe these larger entities have
> trained people to advice on such questions and maybe they could help? I
> really am asking this most candidly. I see there is a will to avoid
> problem= s
> and in those matters I can only suggest to be prudent.

Exactly. Do you see any apparent issues with the current suggestions? Also, we must not forget that we will operate under German law, which gives us a lot of latitude with respect to application forms. For example, the statutes and articles of KDE e.V. (ev.kde.org) are already quite strict regarding new members, much stricter than the form I drafted for Scribus e.V. In the current form we only ask for disclosure. If an employee of Quark or Adobe wants to become a member, why not? We just want to know about it, just in case the person wants to be elected as a member of the managing committee. And if someone doesn't tell the truth, he can be excluded by the managing committee or the general meeting, no problem.

>
> I think we should add a mention on that form as how to pay. 

Sure. I thought of a separate info sheet, which should be availabale as a PDF from the website of Scribus e.V. But I definitely want to keep it separate from the scale of fees, as the scale can only be changed by the general meeting, and I don't see the need to call for a general meeting if, for example, the bank account, the paying method or an address changes. This is a simple administrative task that need not be voted upon.

> Can we make it 
> clear that a member must renew his membership, say, 30 days prior to the
> en= d
> or anything like that? It is not automatic that a member will renew.

As per the statute, there is no automatic termination of a membership, but the statute describes how to terminate a membership.

Cheers

Christoph
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