Toby Bartels wrote:
Well, it is now (or will be soon, I forget where we are technically in the legal process of changing things over) a nonprofit organisation; eventually it will have members and be a "corporation" in a generic sense.
This is perfect from an American perspective, but other countries can have a different approach to organizations and democracy.
I know how hard it has been to make the Swedish chapter of ISOC (the Internet Society) appear as a legimitate membership organization. When Swedes first heard about it, many thought it sounded like a very undemocratic way of organizing things, compared to what they were used to, and this made it really hard to attract new members. Of course, this came as a surprise to ISOC's American / international organization, since their ambition has been to be very open and democratic. But that's just how cultural clashes work.
In Sweden, corporation and organization law allows for these kinds of formalized organizations: - public share holder corporation (AB publ) - private share holder corporation (AB priv) - private company with multiple owners (HB, KB) - private business with single owner (EF) - foundation (stiftelse) - cooperative, for-profit membership association (ekonomisk förening) - non-profit membership association (ideell förening)
Foundations are regarded as highly undemocratic, because they govern themselves and have no influence from members. The current board of trustees appoints the next board of trustees. Foundations are mostly used for maintaining huge amounts of money, such as the Nobel foundation that owns the money from Alfred Nobel's last will, and awards the Nobel Prize.
Various coops own most of Sweden's farm produce industry, many apartment buildings, a large chain of grocery stores, etc. The generated profit is reinvested or distributed among the members, pretty much like a share holder corporation, but membership comes at a fixed price, every member has one vote and profit is distributed in proportion to each member's economic activity (e.g. size of their apartment, if the coop owns the building). If a wiki website had a huge revenue from banner ads, a coop could be a useful form of organization.
All political parties, trade unions, churches, and any normal association, such as computer clubs, are of the non-profit kind. Legislation is very liberal, but this is balanced by a strong tradition of good practice for writing bylaws, electing a board of trustees, accounting, audit, membership meetings, etc.
Democracy is the readiness of the ruler to give up his power. That is what Swedish non-profit membership associations are about. If the founder maintains "a firm grip" on power or makes the organization depend on him, it is a foundation, a "cult", or some kind of business, and not democratic. To be able to oust the leader, a membership association must depend on its members, not on the leader. This is achieved by paying a membership fee that can pay for all costs that the association has. The fees are maintained by an elected board of trustees, audited by two elected accountants, who report to the annual general assembly of members.
Both the Free Software Foundation and the Wikimedia Foundation are foundations, rather than democratic membership associations. This might seem odd to Swedes who are involved in the life of associations.
My own Swedish wiki website (susning.nu) is not democratic at all. I run it as part of my private single owner business (aronsson.se). Changing it to a foundation wouldn't buy me any extra credibility at all. I could form a democratic membership association, but I'm not ready to give up power, at least not for now. There is no tax exemption for donations to organizations of any kind in Sweden. The only reason to form a foundation is if I would receive a huge donation (this would save me from income tax on the received amount), but no such donations are on the horizon.