[Reposting]
A majority vote of the current board members is required for the following proposal relating to retroactive payment to SFC.
Proposal:
1. In light of the services provided by the Software Freedom Consortium to date, given on voluntary basis, should we provide a retroactive donation to the SFC?
[ ] Yes, donate to SFC in thanks for their past support. [ ] No. We should pay only the required 10% fee going forward from date of signature of the new FSA.
2. Assuming we should donate to the SFC, how much should we donate to SFC?
[ ] a. 10% of gross income since we have been a member (9 years). [ ] b. 10% of gross income since initiation of FSA #2 discussions (2012). [ ] c. A flat amount of $400 per year that we have been a member (2009). This amounts to $3600. [ ] d. A flat amount of $400 per year since FSA #2 (2012). This amounts to $1200. [ ] e. Some other amount: _________________________________________________________
Background:
Tav writes, "I agree with Josh and Ted that a donation to the SFC is appropriate for their past work on our behalf. Can we agree on the amount? I would propose $400 for each year we have been a member. We have been a member for 9 years so that would be $3600.
This assumes that the 10% kicks in on the date the new FSA is approved. "
We were asked by Bradley to provide 10% of our revenue to SFC in 2012:
(b) As I've discussed with a number of you, including Jon, Josh and Tavmjong, Inkscape has received fiscal sponsorship services from Conservancy at no charge since 2006. Back when Conservancy was founded, I was an SFLC employee and SFLC was subsidizing my time -- effectively donating staff time to Conservancy. This ceased in early 2008, and I served as a volunteer for Conservancy on nights/weekends until 2011, when I became a full-time employee -- which was the only way to keep it going with the services it promises (the other option would have been to shut down Conservancy). Since then, to maintain legal services as part of the service plan once SFLC shrunk further, we hired Tony as well. We get a lot done with a staff of two, but obviously we need financial resources to be able to provide these services.
Conservancy's Board of Directors voted about a year ago that all member projects should be required to give 10% of their earmarked revenue to support Conservancy to continue to provide services. This is a standard way for a fiscal sponsor to operate, and we were lucky before that we weren't required to do this, and I'd been waiting to bother Inkscape with this since you are one of our older members. (We haven't taken a new member for anything other than 10% in a few years, BTW). I hope a 10% arrangement as we use with other projects now will be acceptable to you, and I and Tony are happy to discuss further this issue.
In December 2012, we voted generally favorable to paying the 10% fee going forward from 2012. There were questions regarding pass-thru of Google SOC payments and so on, but generally favored the basic idea:
https://sourceforge.net/p/inkscape/mailman/inkscape-board/?viewmonth=201212
For comparison, Software in the Public Interest (SPI), an organization analogous to the SFC, provides similar services and takes 5% of net (after credit card, etc. fees):