[Wikipedia-l] foundation of a German registered association

[Ulrich Fuchs]

> And on the other hand, German tax laws might require (I don't know)
> that the German organization be totally independent under its own
> bylaws in order to be registered ("incorporate") and qualify for tax
> exemption.  I think I warned against this sort of conflict a year ago.
> I strongly recommend that you all look at how the German chapter of
> ISOC (which is an "e.V.", see www.isoc.de) has solved this.  I assume
> they have a working model already, that could be copied.  In fact, the

What we actually did, was copying the model of the Free Software Foundation. 
They also are a "e.V." ("eingetragener Verein") in Germany, not a Foundation. 
As I already said, it's very complicated to found and run a foundation in 
Germany, probably far more complicated than you in the US can imagine. Where 
you would be founding a foundation normally, we are founding an "e.V." Even 
the red cross is an "e.V." in Germany.

Uli