Thanks for all the advice. I'm aware of the 501(c)(6) option - that's also
a possibility.
On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 2:09 PM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Yaron,
You might have a look at 501(c)(6). I have very limited familiarity with
it, but it seems to be used by business services cooperatives and at least
one nonprofit software support organization.
I would encourage you to get more people on your board, preferably people
who are well placed in the kinds of organizations that you would like to
support.
While I don't mean to discourage you, I think you are very early in the
business formation process. Getting board members who are experienced
businesspeople could help both the organization's credibility and the
organization's formation process. You might also benefit from advice from a
CPA and/or small business attorney. I am assuming that you are located in
the United States; if that is so then I would encourage you to contact your
local office of the U.S. Small Business Administration for advice.
Good luck,
Pine
On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 10:46 AM, Yaron Koren <yaron(a)wikiworks.com> wrote:
Hi Pine,
Thanks for your questions.
On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 1:27 PM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for the announcement.
I see that membership has a minimum price of $2,000 per year. Why is
there
a fee to join the organization?
Because money is the main focus of this organization - specifically,
getting funds from organizational users of the software and putting it to
use in development, evangelism, etc. Of course, a lot of development and
evangelism can be done for free, but that's not the main focus of the
EMC.
There are other organizations that handle
volunteer efforts at improving
parts of "enterprise MediaWiki", most notably the MediaWiki Stakeholders'
Group:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Stakeholders%27_Group
Is the organization a 501(c)(3)?
No, but the hope is for it to become an official nonprofit, either by
becoming a 501(c)(3) or via another route. In the last few years the IRS
has apparently been less willing to give 501(c)(3) status to open-source
software organizations like this one, with some high-profile rejections
like the OpenStack Foundation. I haven't tried applying to the IRS yet,
though, so we'll see.
Who are the owners or directors of the organization?
At the moment, I'm the sole owner and director.
-Yaron
Thank you,
Pine
On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 7:49 AM, Yaron Koren <yaron(a)wikiworks.com>
wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm very excited to announce the launch of the Enterprise MediaWiki
> > Consortium (EMC), an organization devoted to supporting and
maintaining
> > "enterprise MediaWiki"
software.
> >
> > As you may know, a lot of open-source software has some sort of
> > organization or foundation that is intended to pool money from users
of
> the
> > software toward developers. MediaWiki is in an unusual situation: it
is
> > funded by the Wikimedia Foundation
(and, to a lesser extent,
Wikimedia
> > Deutschland and others), but those
organizations' primary allegiance
is
to
> software that runs on Wikimedia sites. That leaves a lot of
> MediaWiki-related software (extensions, skins, etc.) that is mostly
> intended for use on non-Wikimedia sites, i.e. "enterprise" uses: some
of
> this software has significant usage, but
very little of it has
> institutional support.
>
> That is where the Enterprise MediaWiki Consortium fits in. It is
intended
> > to fund the development of extensions and other software that
otherwise
has
> no funding source. The set of software being funded is entirely up to
the
> > membership of the EMC, and of course the amount of support that can
be
> > provided depends on the amount of money
that members contribute - an
> amount
> > that will hopefully grow over time.
> >
> > If you belong to an organization, company or website that makes use
of
> > MediaWiki - and specifically, of
MediaWiki-related software not used
on
>
Wikimedia sites - please consider joining the Enterprise MediaWiki
> Consortium - to provide much-needed support for the software you use,
and
to have a
greater say in shaping its future.
You can read more about the EMC here:
http://enterprisemediawikiconsortium.org/
-Yaron
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