[luau] incorporation

Warren Togami warren at togami.com
Thu Sep 5 03:20:00 PDT 2002


On Wed, 2002-09-04 at 23:03, R. Scott Belford wrote:
> Organizing LUAU as a non-profit corporation can really open the doors to more 
> opportunity for our LTSP for schools endeavor.  I have stumbled across the 
> articles of incorportation from Research Triangle's linux group .  Most 
> interesting is their organizational structure of a steering committee.  I 
> like this.  It seems to be the design that insures the infinite democratic 
> existence of the group.  I wonder if this would work for LUAU?
> 
> http://www.trilug.org/steering.php

This is exactly the direction that I am heading.  Last month I met with
Wayne and he explained the Articles of Incorporation.  Becoming a true
non-profit corporation will be the only way we will be able to attract
large tax-deductible donations from businesses and individuals.   Such
tax-deductible donations will be necessary in order to be able to
sustain continuous proactive advocacy, and especially in providing
hardware and continued support for the "Linux for Schools" projects.

> 
> They schedule monthly meetings.  I like this.  Wayne just suggested the same 
> thing.  I have seen many attempts to do this by others.  Perhaps we should 
> just set a schedule and do it year in and year out.  Same with installfests.  
> It would be great to have them on a predictable schedule.

Yes, we need to make predictable monthly meetings, perhaps a minimum of
one organizational meeting and one educational session like a Seminar or
InstallFest.  This however will only be possible if others pick up the
slack, because I cannot do this on my own forever.

As part of incorporation we will need several dedicated people to form
the Board of Directors (or Steering Committee).  I think that such
commitment is all that is needed in order to get momentum started. 
Eventually more and more people will become involved as we become
organized, and the infrastructure we build will keep the ball rolling
long after I'm burnt out. =) 

> 
> As we affirm the values of the list and determine what netiquette we would 
> like to see all of us follow, this is a good time to think about the group's 
> structure.  Warren is rather amazing in doing so much, but, he is just one 
> person.  I assume that his ability to grow personally and professionally will 
> mean allowing projects like this to evolve more or less on their own.
> 
> I had mentioned before that I would take care of the incorporation steps.  
> Warren has mentioned them in the new linux business mailing list.  I propose 
> that we incorporate (non-profit) under the name of LUAU.  The articles that 
> trilug used are a good starting point for addressing the handling of assets.  
> I also like the idea of a steering committee.  Be it now or later, it seems 
> like a good idea.
> 
> scott

The only problem I have with this is the name...
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

There is something in a name.  I name means a lot especially to the
uninitiated, almost like a first impression.  For this reason Wayne had
recommended choosing a name that sounded more professional than a
"LUG".  Perhaps something like:

"Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation"

Perhaps that name is too long, but it communicates exactly what we do. 
The important keywords there are "Foundation" and "Education".  Those
kinds of words make it sound more legit in a professional sense, the
kind of organization that a business person would feel happy about
making contributions toward.

http://www.osef.org/
Wow... Google found the "Open Source Education Foundation" that seems to
be similar in concept.  We could be the Hawaii equivalent.

My other idea was to simply call the official name MPLUG.  I am thinking
more about this possibility now that I see this TriLUG example.

Regarding "LUAU", I have to admit that I still am biased against the
name.  LUAU is the old group that existed since 1994 but fell apart
several times due to various reasons (something about poor management
and petty bickering, I don't know the details, I wasn't around back
then).  To this day several people refuse to join the list only because
of the name.  (What's in a name?)  Two years ago when I revived this
Linux community, I wanted to rename the LUAU list and create my own
MPLUG group for this reason, but enough people complained that LUAU
remained.

I should make myself clear that I do dislike the LUAU name, and I would
definitely not use it as the official corporation name.  As for the LUAU
list itself, I have absolutely nothing against it.  I am mainly
concerned that it is somewhat confusing to new people as an identity,
because there is no LUAU group with meetings.  I will ponder this
further.  I know many of you would be against renaming LUAU, so I may
end up leaving LUAU as-is and creating other lists.

Perhaps I'm making too big a deal about a name, but I feel it is
important for the group name and list name to be consistent, and for
that name to sound professional.

I invite comments about this incorporation process.  We need the
following:
1. Professional sounding name.
2. Board of Directors (Steering Committee) who are willing to take on
various tasks in keeping the group functioning and legal under the law. 
Wayne could you provide more specific details to the list about the
responsibilities of the Board?
3. Web Master/Sys Admin... details coming soon when I actually get
around to installing a content management system on Videl.

Warren





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