[okfn-coord] Formal partner or 'branch' organisation in Germany

[Jordan S Hatcher]

On 15 Oct 2009, at 15:59, Rufus Pollock wrote:

>>>> and are wondering whether to create a German non-profit  
>>>> (specifically
>>>> an 'eingetragener verein' - registered society or association), or
>>>> whether there is another way they could be legally related to the  
>>>> OKF.
>>>
>>> Would they like to be e.g. the OKFN German chapter?
>>
>> Yes they would. And I get the impression they would like to be the
>> OKF's official organisation in Germany (i.e. a higher level of
>> formality/affiliation than an informal local group).
>>
>> Any suggestions for how this could work? Perhaps we could use this as
>> a test case...
>
> Echoing what I said in the previous email (snipped) I think we may as
> well ask these guys to set up formal "OKF(N)" germany chapter. I think
> we want to keep this fairly informal at the present but we probably do
> need a proper MOU of some kind.
>
> Kind of things for this to include:
>
> * Agreement to uphold the principles in governance document (open
> knowledge, tolerance, meritocracy etc)
>
> * Nominating someone to be the official liason to OKF "central"


My concern is that a formal legal relationship means an overhead for  
us in terms of trying to sort out how we legally relate to them and  
overhead in monitoring the relationship to make sure that they don't  
do anything that harms us.

The two points above (principles, and liaison) are exactly the  core  
of what we need to make sure with any chapter, local group.

I'm also wondering about:

* Part of my concern is also that once you pick someone to be your  
"official" local chapter, then you're stuck with them.
* will they split funding away from us? Will German supporters decide  
not to support OKF and only OKF germany?  Will German based funding  
organisations opt away from funding OKF core and only fund the German  
team?  Do we care?

Can we start with something informal and then work up to a "chapter"?   
They don't need to be a chapter to do things like adapt CKAN.

In terms of process, Jonathan you asked:

On 6 Oct 2009, at 23:59, Jonathan Gray wrote:

> They are now at the stage of making a legal entity for the network -
> and are wondering whether to create a German non-profit (specifically
> an 'eingetragener verein' - registered society or association), or
> whether there is another way they could be legally related to the OKF.
>
> I wonder if anyone has any advice on how we should move on this? I
> think this has longer term implications, for what the OKF is. Jordan:
> do you have any legal suggestions?

I think that if there is going to be a formal legal relationship, then  
they have to be legally independent for this to really work, though we  
could try to investigate another corporate approach, the Wikimedia  
Foundation method seems pretty sensible:

A set of requirements
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requirements_for_future_chapters

And a process
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Step-by-step_chapter_creation_guide

Which includes a Chapters Committee
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_committee

All this is also to say that we should rule out having local working  
groups or meetups that don't require a formal legal organisation.

~Jordan

____
Mr. Jordan S Hatcher, JD, LLM

More at: <http://www.jordanhatcher.com>
Co-founder:  <http://www.opendatacommons.org>

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