FSFE financial transparency

[Daniel Pocock]

On 14/08/17 15:04, Jonas Oberg wrote:
> Hi Daniel,
> 
>> It is already public in the report[1] on the fellowship elections.
> 
> Yes, you may be able to find occasional references to it and numbers which
> you may infer from other information given.
> 
>> Then it will be much easier for fellows to understand if those are
>> subsidised by the fellowship donations or if those things are self
>> supporting.
> 
> I'm not sure I would like this to develop into a direction where our
> activities must be self supporting. FSFE supporters contribute to all
> our activities: our legal work, our policy work, as well as the work
> of local FSFE groups, and so on. 
> 
> Each activity is also engaged in because it's important for Free Software,
> not because we expect to make money from it. We don't expect any activity
> to cover its own costs, though some of them do, and more so. We probably
> receive more funding due to our legal work than it costs us, but that
> doesn't mean we should focus on that and do less policy work where the
> opposite may be true, for instance.
> 


Maybe you could provide the detailed figures to the GA and the public
statements could provide some notices indicating which activities are
self supporting.  In a way, a self-supporting activity is a bit like a
donor.

I'm not against the idea of subsidizing worthwhile activities for the
greater benefit of free software, but it would be helpful to give
fellows transparency about such decisions.  It may actually provide an
incentive for people to contribute more.

Regards,

Daniel