Hey All

In my stand for the board

"2. Knowing where all the funds come from and into. Pretty much all that comes to us is from SUSE. But there are donations from the community during oSC's which are totally unaccounted for. I believe before a foundation comes into place, the Board should be able to keep a track of whatever little funds that come from other sources should be accountable to the community. "

Henne asked me

"I believe when you throw around an accusation like this you should back them up with facts. So please, would you go into details? "

When I said, WE as in the board in my reply. And I agree, its my fault entirely, that I had not taken this up with the board immediately, but I have tried to push Alan's proposal to it and so far I have not received any positive response to it. Alan's proposal was a way to account for funds both incoming and outgoing while working along with the SUSE finance department. Vincent's proposal for sfconservancy is undergoing discussions and I applaud the board for taking such positive steps.

I had also asked Izabel, for a link of the talk that she gave at oSC so that I could prepare the report I promised to do so long ago, but this I got a reply today only.

Agustin had recently mailed the board that he is coming up with a report on openSUSE Conference 2013 and I am waiting for it, but I believe them to come up with the report.

Recently, I have mailed the board again, the mail that was sent by Izabel to the board after I was selected. I would like one of the Board members to clarify it.

There are no accusations here, what I am trying to say here WE as in the community is looking for a foundation but we are not entirely prepared for it. One large part of creating a foundation means administrative overhead, and the board along with the community should be forthcoming to take these administrative responsibilities. A community should ask questions but also help to answer those.

WE as in the community as has so far neglected important questions like 1. Where is the GSoC Money going? 2. What about the donations that are taken during oSC? Because of our huge dependence on SUSE. But as we move towards a foundation, we will also be moving towards a more independent entity. The result of a more independent entity would give us a lot of opportunities like 1. more sponsors 2. more control over our infrastructure 3. A legal entity

But with such a lot of things coming up, we will have more work too, like 1. Taxation 2. Copyright protection 3. A transparent accounting system etc etc

These all tasks are difficult for a highly developer community like ours and nobody likes to do the accounting work too. I am not entirely sure whether we will have a foundation or not, but I do believe it is the time to ask the right questions to the board and ourselves as a community. I will be really happy to answer any questions the community has.

I have still a lot to learn I believe and apologies again if anyone felt insulted during my stand.

-- Regards Manu Gupta