incorporation of a new non-profit

[humaneasy]

Hi,

You'd probably are already taken this forward but I would like to let here a small contribution for that discussion that was used for othe project:

I think that for the time being it will be best to create an association or a german e.V. since they could be good forms to host this.

Do not incorporate or host this in USA due to possible problems with software patents and arrassement and lawsuits that the project could suffer.

See the KDE e.V. http://www.kde.org/areas/kde-ev/
        Contact: Matthias Kalle Dalheimer

See the Typo3 Association at http://association.typo3.org/index.php?id=t3a-faq
        Contact: Robert Lemke

I think that Typo3 Association will be the best approach, but it is up to you.

You can dowload here the TYPO3 Association Statutes if you wish

For further information on the best system you can also contact htt://www.sovereigngroup.com and they may help you guys.

Hope it helped somehow.

Best,

Lopo

[CE5_Agent]

You know I still have the 'Apple vs. Franklin' case archived on my Mac. That was when Microsoft used intellectual property from Apple Computer. By the way It does not matter where you incorporate in regards to patent infringement. Patents only lasts thirteen years in the United States anyways. And it costs allot of mony and serious ammounts of documentation to get a patent approved for software in the United States. If I was the patent owner of the LZW compression algorithim and you decided to use it in Europe I could still sue you. There are such things as International Trade Agreements, the Courts are so busy unless it is a major lawsuit patent infringement, esp. where the product goes way beyond 'fair use', you will not even get through the front door.

But I do Like the research you did about the non-profit oversight commities to assist open source projects. And yes you have to be careful if you ever read the story of the U.S. developer that created over seven new compression algorithims, open source is GPL licenses are a good way to go. He created Zip Compression, LZW, and allot of other novel compression algorithims. Thank God he open sourced the Zip Compression algorithim, because one day someone came by and patented all of his work! I truly wish I could remember his name. But by the way I would guess that only 30% of the companies that have patent capable software opt to keep it a 'Trade Secret' and not patent the work, that would require them to publish all of their plans, and findings.