The German Wikipedia community is working on setting up an
"eingetragener Verein" (I found these translations on
dict.leo.org:
"incorporated society", "membership corporation", "registered
association", don't know which one fits best). Presumably the foundation
meeting will take place in february, we will apply for tax exempt status
soon afterwards.
Our goals are
1. to be able to collect donations (tax-free)
2. to communicate with organisations from outside the project in a more
professional, official way (e.g. with universities or foundations)
There has also been a bit of talk about using the association as an
democratic institution for decision making, but nothing has been decided
yet. I'd say we should only use the association for this in case of
emergency or when all other attempts fail.
For more information you can feed Babelfish with these URLs:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verein
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verein/Satzung
Jimbo, is this okay for you? Do you have any wishes or worries?
The association will support all Wikimedia projects, not just Wikipedia.
We will support the whole international project, and transfer part of
the donations to the foundation if this is legaly possible, but focus on
the German-speaking projects. Of course we're not planning a fork, and
of course there is no cabal, at least not a German one.
Kurt