Committee/Meetings/2006 09 04/
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Annodex Foundation Committee Meeting Minutes
4th September 2006, opened: 20:25, closed: 22:21 on irc #anxfnd
Secretary: Silvia Pfeiffer
Chaired by: Jeff Waugh
Agenda:
0) Minutes & email issues
1) Incorporation - next steps
2) Relationship with CSIRO - next steps
3) Hosting solutions - next steps
4) A separate profile for CMML
5) Other business
In Attendance:
Jeff Waugh, chair
Conrad Parker, vice-chair
James Purser, treasurer
Silvia Pfeiffer, secretary
Michael Smith, ordinary member
Zen Kavanagh, ordinary member
Absent:
Andre Pang, ordinary member
Minutes:
0) Previous Minutes and email issues:
- annodex.org wiki is up again - thanks to Shane Stephens at CSIRO
- ratified the following minutes:
June http://annodex.org/wiki/Committee/Meetings/2006_06_05/
July http://annodex.org/wiki/Committee/Meetings/2006_07_03/
August http://annodex.org/wiki/Committee/Meetings/2006_08_07/ .
- sorted illi's email issues wrt committee mailing list
1) Incorporation:
Bruce's Offer
Bruce Badger of OpenSkills offered to re-incorporate OpenSkills as Annodex Foundation instead of
having to start a new Company Ltd By Guarantee (i.e. Australia-wide incorporation). After some
research, we found that the costs of such a name change will be the same as a new incorporation
and the renaming process would be more effort than a new incorporation, thus this idea was rejected.
Discussion
- Australia does not know country-wide incorporated associations.
- The only options we have are "Company Ltd By Guarantee" (AU-wide) or "Incorporated Association" (state-wide).
- See http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic_pub.nsf/byheadline/Registering+not-for-profit+or+charitable+organisations?openDocument for a comparison.
As Company Ltd by Guarantee we:
- can keep the name Annodex Foundation
- have a constitution and can reuse what we've done so far
- have to pay $330 for incorporation
- have to have an annual audit by a professional accountant ($1000 fee + accountant fees)
- can get a reduced annual audit fee if we get charitable status($40 fee)
We would require membership fees to run such an organisation, but that was not deemed productive for community members.
Alternatives discussed:
- Linux Australia Subcommittee, that trades as "Annodex Foundation"
-> Annodex is more than a Linux project, so this might reject some people
-> we don't know if this is legally possible
-> could it own the Annodex Trademark?
- join Xiph.org (http://www.xiph.org/) or Software in the Public Interest (SPI http://www.spi-inc.org/)
-> the Annodex Trademark is an Australian Trademark, so attribution to a US body doesn't really make much sense
- incorporate an association under a different name
ACTIONS:
- James to check with LA about the potential of a subcommittee and its legal status
2) Relationship with CSIRO:
- Conrad will have left CSIRO in October, but Shane Stephens is now running the Annodex servers there.
- We still desire Trademark ownership and potentially patent transfer.
- We do not understand CSIRO's expectations wrt Trademark transfer.
ACTIONS:
- Jeff to approach CSIRO again
- Conrad to get Shane involved in CSIRO discussions
- Silvia to invite Shane to next committee meeting
3) Hosting solutions:
- CSIRO seems committed to Annodex with Shane Stephens and Jose Lay and a replacement for Conrad; with CeNTIE continuing through to August 2007, hosting is secure until then
- if CSIRO at any point ceases to support Annodex with hosting, we should endevour to create a Xiph subproject and host with xiph.org
- failing that, we could host with Linux Australia
4) CMML needs a separate profile:
- The committee had a short discussion on this issue for lack of time.
- Silvia had people asking if it was possible to use CMML without Ogg
- Silvia suggested creating a new domain or sub-domain for cmml to give it a more independent status and to give it a stronger brand
- Zen suggested to have an icon similar to the rss icon to signify that there is a CMML behind this media file on the server
- The committee was split over the issue of supporting CMML to live with non-free formats.
5) Other business:
none.
