Because of the split of Neos and TYPO3, we’have been investigating how to send funds to the Neos project independently of the TYPO3 Association – which can be used e.g. to organize code sprints, pay travel costs or needed development (like time-critical security fixes).
We, the Neos Team, currently do not want to create a formal association, but try to stay in a more “informal” structure.
At the meeting in Munich where we discussed the first part of the Neos Split, my company Sandstorm Media has offered to act as “fundraiser” of the Neos team, where Sandstorm will handle the payment process, and the Neos team will decide in an public and democratic fashion what to do with the money which was raised then. The Neos team has gladly accepted the offer, and we’ve since then preparing the infrastructure for the funding process.
I think there is a danger in staying in the ‘informal’ structure. Things like strategy, leadership and decision making will suffer from that. An ‘informal’ stucture also will not incentivise people to contribute financially. The fact that things went south with the T3A does not mean we cannot have a formal structure. We have learned lessons.
I understand that everything is new and under development, but that formal structure needs to come one way or the other.
I just had a chat with my colleagues about the funding concept of Neos. We just want to let you know that - if it would make the whole process easier for those involved - we (visol digitale Dienstleistungen GmbH, a small Lucerne-based agency with a horribly outdated website that will soon be replaced by a Neos website ) would be ready to help creating an association under Swiss law. We’ve seen that there was already put a lot of thinking into the whole taxes stuff and I just would like to outline some parameters:
Non-commercial associations don’t need to care about VAT up until a yearly transactional volume of CHF 150’000 (~140’000 EUR).
Non-profit associations are not subject to taxation.
The accounting needs to be done in CHF.
I guess the T3A in its beginnings could be a blueprint of a “Neos Association”. Our company could help out with creating the association and we would also be ready to sponsor the work of a treasurer/accounting.
We discuss this a lots, and think that our current restructuring (in term of team, transparency, …) is a good move. About the “official” structure, we don’t want to handle this on our own and will evaluate other solution. But for this we need time, let’s first structure the community, build clear guideline, code of conduct, …
We discuss this option, because we are also based in Switzerland and know how easy is to create an association. German law allow this kind of things too. But the creation is the easy part, managing the association is an other part and a lots more complicated than the creation. We don’t want to create an other T3A, we leave this structure, and we need something different.
the default timeframe for the voting period is 1 week
everyone (team members, community members) can put up a request for funding, but voting needs to be initiated by a team member (which is not yourself)
It’s good practice to discuss your request for funding with a few people to get feedback and a feeling if it could be supported before you actually submit it.
Every request for funding should be started with a thread in Discourse. The team member will put it up for voting as soon as both of you agree its ready.
Notes:
we need to define rates for hours spent in a request for funding
Examples for funding topics
enabling costs (e.g. travel, accommodation…)
utilities (e.g. infrastructure, services and licenses)
