Hi Andreas,
Thanks for the explanation, that's perfectly clear.
On 28 Apr, Andreas Enge wrote:
(...)
> hm, as I read it, I think it is wrong. The idea of the statutes is as
> follows:
> - The SAC is the organ that "is invested with the highest powers within
> the limits of the goal of the Association and the resolutions adopted
> by the General Assembly". So the SAC takes the decisions in day-to-day
> life (while the General Assembly can take all decisions it wants to,
> it is less actionable for everyday business). For instance, we have
> run every membership request and every expense through the SAC.
> - The Board (Presidency and Treasury) are the outward representatives of
> Guix Europe; their roles are constructed as, if I may be so impolite,
> figureheads required for the administrative work (and this is a lot of
> important work, like doing the accounting, opening a bank account
> (which has been *decided* by the SAC, but requires actual paper
> signing or app fingerprinting or what not), writing minutes of
> meetings and so on). Of course it is also expected that the Board is
> active in promoting the association, so it does have an important role
> in practice. But it *represents*, while the SAC *decides*.
> (As to "two of them sit on a Board with the President and Treasurer",
> I am not sure to understand correctly; if I do, it is a
> misunderstanding on your part :) The "Board" *are* the two persons
> "Presidency" and "Treasury", who are members of the SAC together with
> other people not on the Board.)
>
> The essential idea was that of Guix Europe as a self-governed entity
> where decisions are taken collectively, and that more or less all regular
> members join the SAC (in practice, this often means a waiting period of
> one year until the next GA).
>
> Some associations do this by not having a board, and only something like
> the SAC ("collégiale"); however, this has the drawback that all members
> of the SAC would have to be declared to the French administration (with
> name, address, job and, I think, date of birth). The separation of Board
> and SAC makes the *outward* appearance more look like a classical
> association, and only the Board needs to be declared; while the *inward*
> functioning is collective. And members need to disclose their identity
> only to the members of the SAC, who vote on their acceptance (the
> membership form has a box to tick if members are willing to share their
> identity with the public; the current members of the SAC do, this is why
> their names appear on the website; but it is not mandatory to take part
> in the SAC). Concretely, before closing our account, the Banque Populaire
> asked for a list of our members, which we refused to provide.
(...)
Ah! OK, I understand the rationale now.
It's a key point for me, as it was confusing why there were both before.
> Now the statutes have been written by laypersons, and as always, things
> cannot be claimed with full confidence until tested in court. But at
> least this is the spirit of the statutes, and also the way things have
> been handled up to now. (I remember a somewhat sophist argument that in
> practice, not each and every decision is taken by the SAC; for instance
> as Treasury, I have taken the liberty to create a web page and am still
> updating it from time to time as a regular member. However I would claim
> that all important decisions, including membership and anything related
> to finances, organising Guix Days and so on have been taken by the SAC.)
>
>
> As to the relationship to Teams, I see none :)
> Teams are a way of organising the Guix project itself, while
> Guix Foundation (renamed so some time ago) is a non-profit supporting
> work on Guix. Guix Foundation has a legal existence, while the Guix
> project is a social fiction :) In any case, these are separate
> entities.
OK, got it.
indieterminancy - does that give you enough information and clarity about the
SAC?
Steve / Futurile
