[dpl-helpers] Evaluation criterias for prospective Trusted Organizations

[Lucas Nussbaum]

On 02/01/14 at 20:43 -0500, Brian Gupta wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 2:33 PM, Lucas Nussbaum <leader at debian.org> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > On 15/12/13 at 13:49 +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> >> On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 07:13:10PM +0100, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> >> > So, new proposal below, where I tried to consolidate all points raised
> >> > so far.
> >>
> >> Thanks for this new text, it looks generally good to me.
> >> Some minor comments are inlined below.
> >>
> >> > The organization should share Debian's general visions
> >> > ======================================================
> >> >
> >> > The organization's activities and political stance should generally
> >> > match Debian's own political and philosophical stances. If the
> >> > organization is holding assets for other organizations, they should also
> >> > generally match Debian's own political and philosophical stances.
> >>
> >> The second sentence here looks problematic to me. If we take that as a
> >> principle, it seems to imply that organizations that have been
> >> recognized as TOs should seek Debian approval before accepting other
> >> projects under their umbrella, barring the risk that Debian might want
> >> to walk away if the don't do so. Given Debian might decide anyhow to
> >> walk away whenever we see fit, I'd just remove the second sentence. It's
> >> not clear what it gives us.
> >
> > OK
> >
> >> > The organization should provide accountability on assets held in trust
> >> > ======================================================================
> >> >
> >> > Some examples of possible implementations:
> >> > - The organization provides, on a regular and frequent basis,
> >> >   detailed reports of assets tranfers and balance sheets, in a
> >> >   machine-parsable format.
> >>
> >> I suggest to give an idea of what we consider "regular and frequent
> >> basis", even if only as an example. As mentioned before, I'd go for
> >> "quarterly".
> >>
> >> > - The organization provides a direct access to Debian's accounts,
> >> >   in a machine-parsable format.
> >>
> >> I think what you mean here with "direct" is access to the live data. I
> >> suggest to explicitly say so.
> >
> > OK
> >
> > Thanks for the feedback!
> >
> > I've copied the resulting list, including your suggestions, to
> > https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DPL/TrustedOrganizationCriteria
> >
> > Any other comments? From Auditors maybe?
> >
> > If not, I will reach out to SPI, FFIS, Debian.ch and Debian France to
> > see if they have feedback or questions about that document.
> >
> > Regarding the official, constitutional process of discussing the
> > addition of TOs, it would probably make sense to go through it for each
> > of SPI, FFIS, Debian.ch and Debian France. It's highly unlikely one of
> > them won't qualify, but it's still an opportunity to revisit where they
> > stand.
> >
> > Lucas
> 
> Generally I'd say it looks great, however there may be a conflict between:
> 
> "Donations and sponsorship are tax-deductible for the donor"
> 
> and:
> 
> "There are no major restrictions on what kind of expenses can be made,
> either due to the organization's bylaws or to the legal framework of
> the organization",
> "There are no major restrictions on how the organization could
> transfer money to another TO"
> 
> I say this because at least in the US, when money is given to a 501c3
> non-profit, like SPI, and the donations are tax-deductible, there are
> restrictions on how the money can be spent. e.g. - A conference would
> generally be ok, as would services and equipment used to facilitate
> the project, but a keg-party, or contributions to a political
> campaign, not so much. That said I don't think this will have a
> significant impact on how we spend money, just want to make you aware
> that when you run it by some of our TOs, they may find issue with the
> wording. (I guess it's all in how you parse "major restrictions").

Right. I added the following paragraph:
  Some properties are often mutually exclusive (e.g.; ''tax-deductible
  for the donor'' and ''no major restrictions''). This is fine -- the
  goal here is to understand beforehand what will be possible for a
  specific TO.

> Also for: "There are no major restrictions on how the organization
> could transfer money to another TO", we may want to change "money" to
> "assets", as we do have non-monetary assets that we might
> hypothetically want to transfer between TOs.

Right.

Thanks for the feedback! To move forward, I've sent the current status
to -project at .
 
Lucas