<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 11:59 AM, Femke Snelting <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:snelting@collectifs.net">snelting@collectifs.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"> <br> Not having the <a href="http://libregraphics.org" target="_blank">libregraphics.org</a> domain is annoying but not a reason to change the kind of organisation we need. The part of the name that matters to me most:<br></blockquote> <div><br>I was thinking about the relatively small percentage of people who still arrive at web sites strictly by domain name. Many "normal" users I've encountered will google "yahoo" to get to that website. The last thing that should be blocking this initiative is a domain name. We can always take a subdomain, as we have at <a href="http://create.freedesktop.org">create.freedesktop.org</a>, or use the longer but still perfectly reasonable libregraphics[foundation/assoc/etc].org (because remembering a domain name for a site is not a blocker on finding that site whatsoever these days, so long as you can remember at least a portion of the site's title).<br> </div><div><br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"> *Association*<br> - The Libre Graphics community is a network.<br> <br> We should not want a Foundation.<br> <br> The work of the Libre Graphics community brings together very different<br> goals, ideas, flavors, methods and perspectives. The energy buzz of LGM is about seeing work that none of us could have imagined on our own. At LGM we discuss standards and workflows for example. Not because we want to constrain creativity, but because we want to participate in interesting interfaces between developers, artists and devsigners.<br> <br> Now LGM is growing away from an informal network, we cannot avoid imagining some form of organisation that supports Libre Graphics or the Libre Graphics Meeting long term. But however it plays out, we need to take care of the diversity that drives this community.<br> <br> A foundation exists to define and converge; an association can support a network. I think it is a mistake to use this term for Libre Graphics, even (or even more so) the organisation is legally set up as an association.<br> </blockquote><div><br>Certainly KDE/GNOME/FSF/Blender Foundations support their networks? It seems to me that the distinction between foundation/association you highlight here is a behavioral one and not something intrinsic to the words or the legal structures implied by those words.<br> <br>To me "association" sounds like something that could get blown away by a strong gust of wind. But having said that, I'd prefer to start organizing the nuts and bolts of this structure and so support the adoption of either LGA or LGF.<br> <br>John Haltiwanger<br></div><div> <br></div></div>