David Pratt <david.pr...@tidesdk.org> > The first is that the core talent of TideSDK wish to create a > commercial derivative work called TideSDKPro. I understand that we > cannot create a for profit commercial entity under a non profit > organization so a comercial entity has been established. [...]
I don't think the above is always true. There are many non-profit orgs that have for-profit commercial entities under them, including my first serious workplace, Waterfront-Student Union Services Ltd. As far as I know, SUS's trading profit was vital for covering the non-profit org's running costs... as well as a way to offer students an alternative to rip-off convenience store and chain bar prices back then. It may still be beneficial for the core team to have their own commercial enterprise to support them. I'd strongly suggest that a contributors' co-operative is an obvious model (which may actually be non-profit, depending how one defines profit), but don't kid yourself that you have to do it because non-profit organisations can't have for-profit trading arms. But are there particular (maybe NY-local) restrictions that means SPI could not have such a social enterprise in the family somehow? Sorry but I don't have useful answers to the other two questions right now - just this other question, which might be useful to know for future reference. Thanks, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ _______________________________________________ Spi-general mailing list Spi-general@lists.spi-inc.org http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
