Hi everybody,
In the blog about fellowship elections being cancelled[1], the fellowship has been likened to a corporate donor.
A similar comparison was made in the invitation to the extraordinary general assembly.
On the transparency page[2], there is a link to donor information[3] where FSFE identifies the significant corporate donors, especially those who contribute more than 10% of the budget.
The fellowship appears to contribute[4] about a third of the budget, more than any other single donor. That was almost EUR 190,000 in 2016
A single fellow also made a bequest of EUR 150,000 to FSFE and they were not identified publicly. Every corporate donor who contributes over 10% is named publicly. Does anybody feel that the same transparency principle should apply in cases such as bequests?
Corporate donors (whether they are publicly listed or private companies) typically have to publish some information publicly, at a bare minimum, we can see in which country they are domiciled and who their directors are.
I feel it is a good idea to publish more details about FSFE membership and fellowship. In comparison, while at RMLL, I was at the session about April where they announced that they have 4,000 members[5] and clarified that these are all full members of the association with a right to vote.
FSFE currently publishes[6] the names of all legal members (GA members), there are 29. FSFE has not directly published statistics about the fellowship though, although the page[7] about the last elections showed there were 1,532 people eligible to vote.
There is a weekly report circulated in the team mailing list that gives a membership breakdown by country. As fellowship representative, I feel that the information in this report is quite important for the fellowship at large. I also feel that it is important for other reasons:
- giving volunteers transparency, the same details that GA and team are aware of
- being consistent with the availability of information about the corporate donors (e.g. we can see where corporate donors are domiciled, so it is important to know where the fellows are predominantly domiciled)
- as the "E" in FSFE is for Europe, I feel it is important to demonstrate the extent to which FSFE is engaged in each European country
The dissemination of the fellowship statistics on the team mailing list stopped shortly after the extraordinary general assembly. I notice that the fellowship numbers had been increasing last year but in the last few months it has been decreasing. Personally, I suspect that two factors may be responsible:
- the renaming of "fellow" to "supporter", many of the email templates and web pages only started using the new term in the last few months. I personally feel this is a downgrade, as a fellow is by definition a member of a fellowship while a supporter is a more external role. Other people may have had the same feeling and quit.
- increasing awareness about the GA decision[8] in October to begin the process of abolishing elections
There is also a report circulated each week about mailing list subscriptions. I notice in this report that there is a strong correlation between the number of fellows in each country and the number of mailing list users in each country. The blog[1] about removing the elections asserts that fellows are a "purely financial contributor" but if they are active in the mailing list and volunteering, I feel that statement does not adequately describe the fellowship and it is even more critical to have details on the transparency page and to ensure the GA meeting in October puts in place a new procedure for community members to vote.
Regards,
Daniel
1. https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180526-01.en.html 2. https://fsfe.org/about/transparency-commitment.en.html 3. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html 4. https://fsfe.org/about/funds/2016.en.html 5. https://www.april.org/association#Chiffres_cles 6. https://fsfe.org/about/team.en.html 7. http://civs.cs.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/results.pl?id=E_29119d29f759bbf8 8. https://danielpocock.com/our-future-relationship-with-fsfe-2018
Dear all,
Am 2018-07-09 um 20:57 schrieb Daniel Pocock:
A single fellow also made a bequest of EUR 150,000 to FSFE and they were not identified publicly.
Correction: We recieved a large sum out of an inheritance where the deceased explicitly wished to remain anonymous. We never claimed that this person was a Fellow, and to keep anonymity of the person intact, I will also not make any statement about whether or not the deceased was a Fellow.
Every corporate donor who contributes over 10% is named publicly. Does anybody feel that the same transparency principle should apply in cases such as bequests?
We clarified this with "Initiative Transparente Zivilgesellschaft" whose rules we follow regarding transparency, and they confirmed that it is ok to follow the deceased's wish for anonymity.
Personally, I do not see a large risk of the deceased person trying to influence FSFE's policy in future.
The dissemination of the fellowship statistics on the team mailing list stopped shortly after the extraordinary general assembly.
Huh? There hasn't been any change in this. The statistics is still sent each Sunday on 4:00 by a cron job.
For others reading here: the statistics shows the number of supporters by country and the development over the past months and years. It is sent to the "core team" mailing list so that people coordinating an activity can get feedback about the development of supporter numbers.
I notice that the fellowship numbers had been increasing last year but in the last few months it has been decreasing. Personally, I suspect that two factors may be responsible:
[...]
Maybe it's the discussion currently happening on some public mailing lists which create the impression that FSFE is mainly busy with its own internals rather than doing actual work. It is unfortunate that such an impression comes up, because it does not match reality.
Thanks,
On 09/07/18 21:31, Reinhard Müller wrote:
Dear all,
Am 2018-07-09 um 20:57 schrieb Daniel Pocock:
A single fellow also made a bequest of EUR 150,000 to FSFE and they were not identified publicly.
Correction: We recieved a large sum out of an inheritance where the deceased explicitly wished to remain anonymous. We never claimed that this person was a Fellow, and to keep anonymity of the person intact, I will also not make any statement about whether or not the deceased was a Fellow.
Would FSFE be willing to allow the elected fellowship representative to know the facts about this person and see their written intentions?
Every corporate donor who contributes over 10% is named publicly. Does anybody feel that the same transparency principle should apply in cases such as bequests?
We clarified this with "Initiative Transparente Zivilgesellschaft" whose rules we follow regarding transparency, and they confirmed that it is ok to follow the deceased's wish for anonymity.
Personally, I do not see a large risk of the deceased person trying to influence FSFE's policy in future.
I think it may be useful in such cases for the fact this happened to be in the list of top donors anyway, but with a statement there saying "name withheld - bequest" and a brief note about how FSFE acts in such cases.
The dissemination of the fellowship statistics on the team mailing list stopped shortly after the extraordinary general assembly.
Huh? There hasn't been any change in this. The statistics is still sent each Sunday on 4:00 by a cron job.
For others reading here: the statistics shows the number of supporters by country and the development over the past months and years. It is sent to the "core team" mailing list so that people coordinating an activity can get feedback about the development of supporter numbers.
Last email I saw was on 10 June, if it is a technical issue please let me know
I notice that the fellowship numbers had been increasing last year but in the last few months it has been decreasing. Personally, I suspect that two factors may be responsible:
[...]
Maybe it's the discussion currently happening on some public mailing lists which create the impression that FSFE is mainly busy with its own internals rather than doing actual work. It is unfortunate that such an impression comes up, because it does not match reality.
Not discussing the issue runs the risk that things continue to slide.
I notice that our sister organization, the FSF, also produces an annual report[1] with membership and supporter data. They report having 9 board members with voting rights and 2000 volunteers.
Their report includes the amounts paid in some individual salaries and a much more detailed budget.
The amortization report lists some of the hardware products they have chosen.
In my role as representative, I'm keen to see a similar amount of detail made available to FSFE's fellows and I wouldn't be performing my role properly if I didn't ask questions like that.
Regards,
Daniel
Am 2018-07-09 um 21:59 schrieb Daniel Pocock:
Would FSFE be willing to allow the elected fellowship representative to know the facts about this person and see their written intentions?
No.
It was that person's last will to remain anonymous. The name is known to those who absolutely needed to know in order to process the formalities and to nobody else.
As you might have noticed, I estimate privacy of our supporters and volunteers as an important value anyway, but this is about a last will. I will not even discuss this further.
The dissemination of the fellowship statistics on the team mailing list stopped shortly after the extraordinary general assembly.
Huh? There hasn't been any change in this. The statistics is still sent each Sunday on 4:00 by a cron job.
Last email I saw was on 10 June, if it is a technical issue please let me know
Next time it might be a good idea to check for technical issues or at least ask internally before making such a claim on a public discussion list.
I hope you understand that this mailing list is not the right place to discuss technical email issues.
Thanks,
On 09/07/18 22:18, Reinhard Müller wrote:
Am 2018-07-09 um 21:59 schrieb Daniel Pocock:
Would FSFE be willing to allow the elected fellowship representative to know the facts about this person and see their written intentions?
No.
It was that person's last will to remain anonymous. The name is known to those who absolutely needed to know in order to process the formalities and to nobody else.
As you might have noticed, I estimate privacy of our supporters and volunteers as an important value anyway, but this is about a last will.
But that is why it is so important that it is discussed
There have been discussions where people were unclear about the relationship between FSF and FSFE or the fact that these are different organizations. I've seen that both publicly and privately. If people are putting FSF(E) into their will and if they do so believing their money will go into promoting freedom as RMS explains it then is FSFE able to accept that money?
If they were a member of the fellowship, it would be relevant for the fellowship representative to know that, even if the person was not named.
As fellowship representative, I see a more than trivial probability that this person was a fellow and therefore I'm keen to have some clarity about their relationship with the organization. I'm not insisting that their name be released.
The dissemination of the fellowship statistics on the team mailing list stopped shortly after the extraordinary general assembly.
Huh? There hasn't been any change in this. The statistics is still sent each Sunday on 4:00 by a cron job.
Last email I saw was on 10 June, if it is a technical issue please let me know
Next time it might be a good idea to check for technical issues or at least ask internally before making such a claim on a public discussion list.
I hope you understand that this mailing list is not the right place to discuss technical email issues.
Yes, but that was only one small part of the original email and you have largely cut out the rest of it.
On Monday 9. July 2018 22.29.45 Daniel Pocock wrote:
There have been discussions where people were unclear about the relationship between FSF and FSFE or the fact that these are different organizations. I've seen that both publicly and privately. If people are putting FSF(E) into their will and if they do so believing their money will go into promoting freedom as RMS explains it then is FSFE able to accept that money?
Surely this is a matter for those charged with the task of executing the will.
(I personally do not see such donations in the same way as corporate donations. Corporations have their own ongoing agendas and could be perceived as buying influence by donating to charitable organisations. That an individual might decide to leave money to a cause that was dear to them is rather a different matter.)
I think your other points are more worthy of discussion...
The financial contributions of fellows/supporters to the organisation and whether fellows/supporters should feel that this alone might give them some influence in the organisation's direction, perhaps by being asked their opinions, and then perhaps only slightly influencing operations within the more rigid parameters of the organisation's stated mission.
Whether the abolition of the Fellowship is confusing to potential or existing supporters and/or donors, and whether they perceive any involvement they might have as being different after this change.
Whether there is a reasonable level of satisfaction amongst fellows/supporters about the functioning and activities of the organisation, and whether these still match the expectations of these people.
Matters of representation and whether fellows/supporters feel sufficiently represented, particularly by a board of largely appointed individuals.
Transparency about what is generally done in the organisation and the level of engagement with fellows, supporters and others.
Paul
Hi all,
Am Montag, den 09.07.2018, 22:29 +0200 schrieb Daniel Pocock:
On 09/07/18 22:18, Reinhard Müller wrote:
Am 2018-07-09 um 21:59 schrieb Daniel Pocock:
Would FSFE be willing to allow the elected fellowship representative to know the facts about this person and see their written intentions?
No.
It was that person's last will to remain anonymous. The name is known to those who absolutely needed to know in order to process the formalities and to nobody else.
As you might have noticed, I estimate privacy of our supporters and volunteers as an important value anyway, but this is about a last will.
But that is why it is so important that it is discussed
Non sequitur?
There have been discussions where people were unclear about the relationship between FSF and FSFE or the fact that these are different organizations. I've seen that both publicly and privately. If people are putting FSF(E) into their will and if they do so believing their money will go into promoting freedom as RMS explains it then is FSFE able to accept that money?
If you make your last will with a (for you, at least) substantial amount of money I bet you know who you want to support EXACTLY. FSFE is Free Software Foundation Europe e.V. Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Deutschland and very distinct from Free Software Foundation, 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor Boston, MA 02110-1335, USA.
If they were a member of the fellowship, it would be relevant for the fellowship representative to know that, even if the person was not named.
Why?
As fellowship representative, I see a more than trivial probability that this person was a fellow and therefore I'm keen to have some clarity about their relationship with the organization. I'm not insisting that their name be released.
This person didn't donate to you but to FSFE, I think? The Fellowship programme may or may have not had any influence on their decision, how is that important?
You might feel like the last man standing for freedom and justice (you said so), but maybe (just maybe) you're taking it a little bit too personal?
Best wishes Michael
The snarky-ness on this entire ML starts being a burden to read. Probably I represent more people than myself with that view. Everybody, please be more excellent to each other.
I know you can :)
Cheers, Robert
+1111.
On 10. Jul 2018, at 01:05, mray mail@mray.de wrote:
The snarky-ness on this entire ML starts being a burden to read. Probably I represent more people than myself with that view. Everybody, please be more excellent to each other.
I know you can :)
Yes, that would be wonderful. Maybe try to focus on issues where we can work together, and move things forward towards tangible results.
Best,
Mirko. -- Mirko Boehm | mirko@kde.org | KDE e.V. FSFE Team Germany Qt Certified Specialist and Trainer Request a meeting: https://doodle.com/mirkoboehm
On 10/07/18 09:19, Michael Kesper wrote:
If you make your last will with a (for you, at least) substantial
Why do some people in this community thrive on personal put-downs and insults?
When people make attacks like this on a representative it usually means they are avoiding real answers.
On 10/07/18 12:53, Mirko Boehm wrote:
+1111.
On 10. Jul 2018, at 01:05, mray <mail@mray.de mailto:mail@mray.de> wrote:
The snarky-ness on this entire ML starts being a burden to read. Probably I represent more people than myself with that view. Everybody, please be more excellent to each other.
I know you can :)
Yes, that would be wonderful. Maybe try to focus on issues where we can work together, and move things forward towards tangible results.
What is not tangible about publishing the membership numbers?
Isn't an increase in transparency likely to help retain and grow membership and isn't that a worthwhile tangible outcome too?
Isn't the type of person who makes a valuable contribution in a group like FSFE likely to be the type of person who values transparency and elections too?
Or does FSFE aspire to have "supporters" who just give money and don't ask questions?
An association is fundamentally about the members. Downgrading fellows to supporters, minimizing the value of their contributions to FSFE (as in the announcement[1]) and generally treating them like children by having a separate membership class for the "adults" are all problems that need to be addressed if the dwindling membership is going to be resolved and other tangible outcomes achieved.
Regards,
Daniel
Hi everyone!
Am 10. Juli 2018 09:19:27 MESZ schrieb Michael Kesper mkesper@fsfe.org:
If you make your last will with a (for you, at least) substantial amount of money I bet you know who you want to support EXACTLY.
I would like to add something here: I take the "you" in this sentence as an impersonal "you". That means I understand it as " If somebody makes their last will with a (for that person, at least) substantial amount of money I bet they know who they want to support EXACTLY." The impersonal use of "you" is very common in English.
Happy hacking! Florian
Hi all,
Am Dienstag, den 10.07.2018, 15:21 +0200 schrieb Florian Snow:
Am 10. Juli 2018 09:19:27 MESZ schrieb Michael Kesper <mkesper@fsfe.o rg>:
If you make your last will with a (for you, at least) substantial amount of money I bet you know who you want to support EXACTLY.
I would like to add something here: I take the "you" in this sentence as an impersonal "you". That means I understand it as " If somebody makes their last will with a (for that person, at least) substantial amount of money I bet they know who they want to support EXACTLY." The impersonal use of "you" is very common in English.
Yes, that's how I meant it. Anyway, I probably should have not sent that email and will refrain from further commenting on this thread. Sorry if I offended anyone.
Best wishes Michael
Hello,
Quite some time ago, the following topics came up...
On Monday 9. July 2018 20.57.17 Daniel Pocock wrote:
On the transparency page[2], there is a link to donor information[3] where FSFE identifies the significant corporate donors, especially those who contribute more than 10% of the budget.
The donors page carries information up to and including 2019.
The fellowship appears to contribute[4] about a third of the budget, more than any other single donor. That was almost EUR 190,000 in 2016
However, summarised information for 2018 is not yet available. Is this overdue or is it expected to be published within the year? It would be particularly interesting to see if the prediction of a decline in Fellowship/supporter revenue had come to pass. (Noting that the cash flow page still refers to Fellows, not supporters.)
Paul
Hi, Paul!
Am 09.09.19 um 17:44 schrieb Paul Boddie:
However, summarised information for 2018 is not yet available. Is this overdue or is it expected to be published within the year?
It will be published as soon as the numbers have been finalized by our tax consultant. We expect this to happen before the end of the year.
Thanks,
On Tuesday 10. September 2019 12.04.25 Reinhard Müller wrote:
Am 09.09.19 um 17:44 schrieb Paul Boddie:
However, summarised information for 2018 is not yet available. Is this overdue or is it expected to be published within the year?
It will be published as soon as the numbers have been finalized by our tax consultant. We expect this to happen before the end of the year.
That is good to know. I don't follow the details of reporting schedules, and I don't recall when previous summaries were published, but I did wonder whether there had been an unusual delay in publication.
Paul
On Tuesday 10. September 2019 13.58.14 Paul Boddie wrote:
On Tuesday 10. September 2019 12.04.25 Reinhard Müller wrote:
Am 09.09.19 um 17:44 schrieb Paul Boddie:
However, summarised information for 2018 is not yet available. Is this overdue or is it expected to be published within the year?
It will be published as soon as the numbers have been finalized by our tax consultant. We expect this to happen before the end of the year.
That is good to know. I don't follow the details of reporting schedules, and I don't recall when previous summaries were published, but I did wonder whether there had been an unusual delay in publication.
So, the numbers are available for 2018. Thanks to those responsible for publishing them! For reference, see here for the details:
https://fsfe.org/about/funds/2018.en.html
Of principal interest to me is the general development of the numbers from year to year. These are summarised here:
https://fsfe.org/about/funds/funds.en.html
But to save people the bother, here's the total income over the last five reported years (in EUR):
2014: 387139.12 2015: 445998.83 2016: 649194.75 2017: 543772.73 2018: 498407.61
And of interest to those of us who were Fellows and those who are Supporters, their contributions:
2014: 161010.73 2015: 175939.36 2016: 187247.70 2017: 208581.31 2018: 184171.60
Meanwhile, general donations are as follows:
2014: 187544.33 2015: 215446.99 2016: 395971.51 2017: 198820.36 2018: 189235.03
And there are also paid services (whatever these are) that bring in revenue:
2014: 18148.47 2015: 26803.17 2016: 34563.50 2017: 107783.06 2018: 81090.47
I think it was remarked that 2016 saw an unusual donation of a considerable sum (150000), bringing the general donations that year to a higher total than would have been expected. Disregarding that, it would then seem that 2017 was the year of peak "ordinary" income, although some insight into the rather larger "paid services" revenues would be interesting since they have been holding up the bottom line.
Previously, there has been discussion about the proportion of income coming from Fellows/Supporters. If my quick scripts are correct, the percentages look like this:
2014: 41.59 2015: 39.45 2016: 28.84 (37.51) 2017: 38.36 2018: 36.95
So, 2016's unusual financials aside (see bracketed figure excluding the unusual donation), it seems like a pretty gradual decline in share. In general, the Fellow/Supporter contributions seem to track the general income pretty well, with the general donations being of a similar magnitude.
Paul
Hi, Paul!
Thank you for your comment on our financials! Considering the time I spend compiling the numbers, I'm really happy somebody outside the financial team actually looks at them, besides the tax office. ;-)
Am 19.01.20 um 22:48 schrieb Paul Boddie:
And there are also paid services (whatever these are) that bring in revenue:
2014: 18148.47 2015: 26803.17 2016: 34563.50 2017: 107783.06 2018: 81090.47
[...] some insight into the rather larger "paid services" revenues would be interesting since they have been holding up the bottom line.
In most years, the by far largest share of the item "paid services" is participation fees for the Free Software Legal and Licensing Workshop (https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/legal-conference.en.html).
The extraordinary high numbers in 2017 and 2018 result from significant money we received for the REUSE project (https://reuse.software/), specifically from Siemens.
Other income included in this item is speaker fees FSFE receives for talks held by staff or volunteers, and remuneration for consulting done by FSFE.
For the curious, and for the sake of completeness: the numbers given are excluding VAT.
I hope this helps. Please don't hesitate to ask further questions!
Best,