Z98 wrote:Let us go over a couple of pretty simple facts here. The German foundation was established fairly recently in the history of the project and it was only after the German foundation was established that the project began seeing large inflows of donations. Previous expenses were extremely limited because we did not have development contracts and hosting was provided by specific community members with longstanding ties to the project, several of whom nowadays have sys admin roles with us. Then as the German foundation was ramping up and getting enough money to actually contemplate more major expenditures that they would then report publicly, they got hit with a notification from tax authorities that the development contracts they wanted to do might not be legal under German law. That pretty much killed the only major expenditure that they were planning to do, and until they could get the damn tax issues straightened out, there was a great deal of confusion as to what/how they could pay for existing expenses that they were going to take over from the Russian based foundation. This wrangling took nearly two years to straighten out and doing so ate up a considerable amount of time and effort on their part. During that time the German foundation could not talk publicly about the issue until it was resolved but the team internally was kept well briefed as they consulted tax lawyers. After the issue was bypassed, we revealed the existence of the issue in public meeting minutes and since then the members of the German foundation have been working to get more of their activities and expenditures publicly documented.
You make points, which are perfectly fine. What is NOT appreciated is the accusatory tone your posts take, where you basically imply that if only we put effort into it, we could satisfy your expectations, and thus implying that we are not putting effort into things, despite knowing very little about what goes on behind the scenes such as the problems I mentioned above. Then there is the fact that if you bothered looking at the minutes of the German meetings, you would notice that in the ones starting in 2012, they actually start breaking down expenses and what the foundation's balance is. A glance at the latest minutes indicates at a high level what expenses the project incurred. Since they are a German registered non-profit, and since they've already had to wrangle with the tax man once because of how anal-retentive the German bureaucracy is, I trust that they have provided sufficient information as to satisfy German legal obligations. If you feel that the above breakdown does not provide enough data, ie you believe that there is value in knowing that oh X euros went to a network card or Y euros went to train fares for travel to conference, then bloody ask the people that are part of the German foundation and do it via their channels. The majority of their board members (much like the majority of the older devs) barely look at the forums anymore to due to the signal/noise ratio and their treasurer I know doesn't pay attention to the forum unless someone directly pokes him about it. So you complaining about what you consider to be lack of detail here is not really going to accomplish anything productive.
Thanks for giving some feedback. I once more want to point out that the 'accusatory' tone is largely because you interpret it that way. I stated that to publish a balancesheet is pretty simple. And it is. I said the pages upon pages of minutes and irc talks, do not constitute a proper balancesheet. And it doesn't. I also noted that fixing menu-buttons take only half an hour, while here it took 6 months. This is also entirely correct. I mean, I understand you
*don't like* that I say it as it is, and I guess it's not smoothtalking things, granted, but those are the facts too. If you read with attention, I did not say 'nobody is doing any effort' (which is what you make of it, I presume), rather I blame it on the internal structure, procedures and the prevailing mentality when decisions have to be made in ROS, aka 'the system'. I also explicitly said and agreed being shorthanded and being volunteers causes delays. Only, I think the latter can not entirely be the sole fact to be blamed for some of the things that takes ages and ages around here. You find that accusatory. I don't. Observing reality and saying as it is, is not accusatory. Quae scribit est.
While you now give an explanation - which is appreciated - for why there has been trouble with tax authorities, this primarily deals with contracts/hiring people. It does NOT, on itself, prohibits making a balancesheet. Let me ask you straight: is there, like in my country, a legal obligation to make a yearly report (balance)? Does that obligation dissipates when there is discussion/trouble with tax-authorities?
I don't know enough of the legal system in Germany, but in my country, problems with the tax authorities does not absolve you from your legal obligations.Which means one should make one each year regardless. So where are they? Certainly now that things seem to have been 'resolved', there is no need to not publish them anymore. All of them. Which leads me to the following proposition, if I'm not being to pushy: why not place all the balancesheets/financial reports in one central place, easy to find and read up on? Surely, you must see the complete inadequacy of providing a bunch of minutes and then say; well, there is a balancesheet to be found somewhere in there. In the spirit of openness and transparency, it seems rather obvious to me, that the financial reports - which one might consider not without importance, after all - are all grouped (per year) in a central place/link/page. and, oh, yes, in English too, not only in German.
Also, while you now act as if things only matter from the ROS foundation onwards...- found in 2009, I believe? - I wonder what happened to the earlier streams of money? Because, while you say there weren't 'large inflows of donations' I do note that as early as 2005 (at the very least; I checked) there were already ways to pay and donate (paypal, for instance). I don't know how big the inflow needs to be in Germany, but even if it was a tenth of the amount we now have, it should have been recorded. *Should*. If that was not done, it's a severe oversight. If not by the organisation, then by the person(s) that handled these things. Persons, as you yourself said, that might well be the sys admins of today. Once again, you may find that accusatory. But is it
UNTRUE what I say? Is it even unreasonable? Me thinks not. Generally speaking, a bit of self-contemplation would go far and be of more use than always acting like one is being stung by a bee or rubbed the wrong way.
Surely you can see that, organisational wise, there is much room for improvement?
But anyway, I'm glad to hear things will apparently improve from now on in this regard. I'm looking forward to it. To improve it even further, and to show I'm not all talk, I'm willing to make that 'financial report' page and place it on the site (though I only have rights in the Dutch section) or wiki, or whatever. I guess only from 2012 onwards, if I am to understand correctly. I'll translate it into English, if need be. A few pointers to which minutes that exactly entails would be welcome, for, as I said, wading through dozens of minutes ain't really userfriendly.
As for your wallpaper thread, oldman is effectively correct, when the time comes to prepare a point release the ticket will be acted upon. Until then there's literally nothing to do since there's no release branch to commit them into.
Will be acted upon...and if I'm on vacation during that period, how are you going to get the high-res ones? Do YOU know where to look for? Is anyone else going to 'waste' their time searching for it?
Seen the 'shorthanded' issue, I doubt it. There is also no reason not to decide in front if the wallpapers are acceptable or not. I didn't see you wait for the next release to say the 'slogan-voting' (from another poster) was deemed unsuitable, after all. As I remember, you said it had been brought before the other devs, or brought up during a meeting, or something, and the different winning slogans were weighed and dealt with there and then.
Or am I to understand that the wallpapers are de facto already approved, but only the incorporation needs to be done?
As said, it needs some feedback, and not only 'waiting until the time is there'. Be a bit pro-active. There is nothing stopping you guys from already talking about it now (well, in a meeting) and deciding of which ones you want a high res picture and tell me, so I can provide it.