[Osmf-talk] Corporate OSMF Members

[Frederik Ramm]

Ed,

On 26.10.2012 02:10, Ed Loach wrote:
> If so, then the OSMF has members rather than shareholders, and I'm
> not sure there is provision in Company Law to allow corporations to
> be members

It is quite likely that this is the case, but I don't expect the legal 
status of OSMF to be fixed, and intended my question to be asking for 
what people would like, not what people would assume to be legally 
possible under current circumstances.

For example, we have seen a bit of discussion about the "membership 
register" and if and how it must be public; superficial reading of the 
Companies Act seems to suggest that the home address of each OSMF member 
must be revealed to everyone who comes asking. If this is true then 
maybe it is a certain barrier to membership, (I would be interested to 
hear how British Mensa deal with that - if I write to them asking for 
the list of members with home address, what will they say? Can you find 
out?)

If, on closer inspection, being incorporated in the UK should turn out 
to be a problem or not give use the flexibility we would like, there's 
no reason why we would have to stick with being a UK company limited by 
guarantee forever. I think that, in the whole "what do we want from 
OSMF" discussion, we will first define our goals, then see if they are 
possible with the form of organisation we currently have, and then 
change that form if it is necessary to do what we want.

But I didn't intend to start this discussion here and now; I think it is 
much too early for that.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"