[olpc-nz] Creating a local Sugar Lab

[Tomeu Vizoso]

I'm just an observer but wanted to take the chance to say that there
has been lots of great work coming from NZ and I hope it keeps coming.

Kudos to all,

Tomeu

On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 07:46, Tim McNamara <mcnamara.tim at gmail.com> wrote:
> What do people think about formalising the relationship between NZ groups &
> the global Sugar Labs? There are a few practical advantages of this and some
> slightly more obscure ones. First, what is a local Sugar Lab? It's pretty
> much exactly what we do now. From http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Local_Labs:
>
> A local Sugar Lab would:
>
> Adapt the technology and pedagogy to an area's culture and resources (e.g,
> developing activities and content specific to a region)
> Help translate Sugar to the local language(s)
> Support Sugar deployments in area schools
> Create a local community devoted to the Sugar Labs principles, making Sugar
> more open and sustainable
> Provide for communication,between the local communities and the global Sugar
> Labs community
> Develop Local content and software that can be used not only for local
> purposes but also for the overall community
> Host, co-host or partner in the organization of conferences, workshops,
> talks and meetings related to the use or development of Sugar,
>
> I am interested in what other people feel. Given that I've got a few years
> of legal training, I tend to view legalistic things like liability,
> incorporation & tax as important. Others are likely to differ. People's
> motivations matter significantly with these kinds of things. Does anybody
> else think this issue is significant?
>
> If people are in favour of exploring the idea, I will try to draft up some
> documentation about what the options/issues are.
>
>
> Incorporation
> At the moment, NZ OLPC & Sugar folk are probably legally classed as an
> unincorporated society, if anything. In order to establish a formal
> relationship, we would probably need to incorporate in some way. The three
> most practical options are a company, incorporated society & a charatible
> trust. [note: the emphasis is skewed in favour of my own opinion,
>
> If you're raising your eyebrow at a company registration, just remember that
> we can have charitable clauses in the constitution restricting the ability
> of the company to pay disbursements to shareholders. Companies are very
> cheap to register. They only need a single director on the board. Because we
> can have shareholders, long-standing volunteers can be given shares in the
> company (which gives them voting rights & a sense of ownership). I tend to
> think of it as a hybrid option between trust and an incorporate.
>
> Charitable trusts are less democratic than incorporated societies, but
> probably more secure. They don't require paid annual members, etc. You need
> a certain number of trustees to look after the interests of the
> beneficiaries- which I guess would be kids in this case. Trustees act in a
> similar fashion to directors of companies.
>
> Incorporated societies are groups of members that act in the interests of
> the members. From memory, there is no board. All votes are democratic on the
> basis of paid membership. 20 members are required to incorporate a society.
> My experience is that AGMs can be really negative affairs, as a faction of
> its membership vote on a proposal that the majority didn't really want.
>
>
> Impacts of change
> Formalising the relationship with Sugar Labs would grant us the legal right
> to use their intellectual property, most formally their trade marks. At the
> moment, if someone else were to use Sugar on educational software &
> services, we would have a very hard time. Unregistered trade marks need to
> establish a reputation in the courts.. which at the very least is time
> consuming to gather evidence.
>
> This means that we could be the official route to Sugar in New Zealand, in
> case other vendors (ahem, my previous Kids++ attempt, for example) try to
> sell Sugar to parents & schools.
>
> Less practically, we would gain charity & tax-exempt status in the USA. No,
> that's not a great help to us. However, it would make our application to the
> charities commission, et cetera easier down the track.
>
> Personally, I feel that it will increase the credibility of the NZ
> OLPC/Sugar groups significantly. It will allow us to support deployments
> more effectively.
>
>
> Tim
>
> _______________________________________________
> olpc-nz mailing list
> olpc-nz at lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-nz
>
>