[OSM-talk-be] Openstreetmap Foundation: the Belgian Chapter

[ivom]

On Fri, 11 Sep 2009, Luc Van den Troost wrote:

> On the other hand te reverse is true too. If a map-maker (...) thinks
> his copyright or commercial interests are violated by OSM it makes it
> more easy for them too to sue, wether they are right or not. But even if
> they are wrong it may put you in the courtroom. If a map-maker or other
> important company wants to make life difficult for osm, and they want to
> play a 'dirty game' it doesn't bother them to loose a few 1000 euro in a
> courtcase, and they can probably affort loosing it.
>
good point. i personally do not expect a lawsuit started against the vzw, 
immediately after creating it. a future lawsuit could however take place 
in a belgian court-room. When recognised as an OSMF chapter could well 
strengthen the position, since then the OpenStreetMap Foundation will very 
likely help out and potentially take over. And eitherway the goal of the 
company should be sueing the OpenStreetMap Foundation and not our vzw, 
unless the belgian vzw has been specifically bad. but, INAL and this 
domain for me are unknown waters for me.

> The purpose of the vwz - maatschappelijk doel - is probably the most
> important part of the statuten. The vzw can only take actions within the
> purpose as formulated there, so it is wise to formulate it quite
> abstract and general. Changing the purpose in the statuten later has to
> be done within quite strict rules, and can be difficult. For instance if
> you refer to 'openstreetmap' and OSM would ever change it's name, you
> run into trouble already.

this is indeed one of the things we as potential members have agree on 
up-front. preferebly before the first meeting to create the vzw takes 
place. to make this proces easier the Wiki-page mentioned earlier on was 
created. Feel free to narrow down or widen the goals definitions there.

> Unless the vzw wants to perform additional commercial activities (for
> instance produce printable maps for private companies) the bookkeeping
> work is quite elemetary - in and out - and there is no VAT obligations.

thanks for this obeservation. printing maps is not to be explicitly taken 
up as a goal of the vzw, but certainly an intersting activity to follow 
up. as you, mention this will create extra paperwork :)

> Inssurance is something that has changed since I had vzw experience. If
> my knowledge is right a vzw now has to have insurance for it's
> collaborators during activities. I think however this is quite the same
> for a 'feitelijke vereniging'.
>

> I am not convinced that, at current time, it is nescessary to put this
> organisational structure in a vzw. That would become nescessary once the
> organisation has -important- own possessions or assets, or could get
> money from third parties.
>
This a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation: Investing for assets is not 
very likely when there is no vzw, so therefor it will never be set up. 
Currently there are indeed no assets, no servers, no bash... wait there 
are some trackers donated!