David Neary wrote:

Are there any people opposed to closer ties with the GNOME Foundation?

As long as GIMP wouldn't be in a rush to / obligated to subscribe to their apalling standards of slaphappy dead-end over-engineering and 1991-shareware approach to user interface standards then I think it makes reasonable short-term sense to exploit what GNOME *does* seem to be good at which is the centralization of services, organisational and financial structure... if that's helpful to GIMP (we've enjoyed peripheral use of some of their services such as CVS for a while).

--Adam

On Sat, May 01, 2004 at 06:06:54PM +0200, David Neary wrote:

For the moment, I am working under the supposition that the best option available to us is to join the GNOME Foundation. That means that when we do fundraising, the donations would go to the GNOME Foundation, and when we have expenses we would ask the GNOME Foundation for money.

In what way would this be different to "we give the donations to the FSF and ask them nicely if we want money"?

The original idea behind a seperate gimp foundation was that begging would be necessary (even if the GNOME foudation might be rather open to giving money...)

Are there any people opposed to closer ties with the GNOME Foundation?

Well, GIMP is not part of GNOME, and this assertion was made repeatedly over the years. Apart from labeling GIMP more of a GNOME program, I wouldn't oppose (but I don't count much anyway :)

David Neary wrote:

Are there any people opposed to closer ties with the GNOME Foundation?

Well, GIMP is not part of GNOME, and this assertion was made repeatedly over the years. Apart from labeling GIMP more of a GNOME program, I wouldn't oppose (but I don't count much anyway :)

I know, We could even change the name of the GIMP to the GINPOG it's been repeated so much. But this is a bunch of people with really close ties to the gimp (we use their toolkit and infrastructure, a few years ago they used to use our toolkit), who really want to help us both short term and long term.

See the problem I see with the GINPOG attitude and joining GNOME is that we are saying we are willing to take your money and your time and your developers, but we are not willing to actually show any support for you in any way. It's kinda datardly. GNOME wants to help us. And it is a lot of work for us to maintain our own foundation. Look, everyone wants "a bank account and a federal ID number" but you can't just have that. You need a board, officers, pay taxes (or file forms to avoid it) and you need to solicite broad public support (e.g. donations from everyone). You need to do something and help people. You can't just exist as a non-profit. And if you are not a non-profit you need to pay taxes, wether or not you make money. (and if GIMP joins GNOME and abandons TGF, I'm the one that has to pay the 800 dollar minimum tax, I might add).

Look, we have people all around us that _want_ to help us. They are not going to beg and they are not going to wait around forever. GNOME is one of the best oppurtunities GIMP has.

-- Dan

On Sun, May 02, 2004 at 08:04:04PM +0200, David Neary wrote:

(we use their toolkit and
infrastructure, a few years ago they used to use our toolkit),

did the name change?

as far as i know it is still the gimp tool kit.

some of you have children. can you imagine asking them for money?

i was quite embarrassed for gnome when i saw how the elections worked on the irc. i know the irc is not really the same as the mail and the official business and such, however -- it was the only view i got at that point.

also interesting that the documents i read long ago (when i was looking at a gimp foundation) were in html and therefore easily readible with a web browser. i dont suggest html as the format for the documentation.

and about goading people who are looking into things now. as much as it might behoove someone to think that i am trying to make life difficult for them, or whatever -- please do not confuse my comments about micro$oft binary text files with goading. you can suggest that i was sucking up to marc lehmann, and that would be perfectly true.

also interesting that i am the person goading and not the developer who made the original statement -- but whatever.

if you do make the documentation in html, perhaps you could allow Rapha?l to make it readible in netscape for you like he did for the whole gimp-user community.

maybe dsrogers could use Rapha?l's help with this?

carol

On Sat, May 01, 2004 at 05:56:43PM +0100, Adam D. Moss wrote:

(we've enjoyed peripheral use of some of their services such as CVS for a while).

my personal experience with gnome cvs is really bad.

i am paraphrasing one of the developers i have a great deal of respect for (paraphrasing since it has been a long time since he/she said this):

"I would not have moved the site to gnome cvs."

after this opinion was expressed, the destruction of a ground up design started to occur.

what was the thing i did that caused this destruction? i trusted a community run cvs system. i trusted that everyone with cvs access would be "with the program".

okay, prophet or instigator? the jury i appointed is still out on this, however, it seemed to be an accurate (however late) warning to me.

i say that not only should we not put ourselves into a position where completely other people are telling us how to spend our funding but that we should also move the gimp development tree to wilber or beta wilber or whatever it is while it is in between things like it is.

the crap email i get from rms lately, i really think that TheGIMP should not be put into the position of asking for anything.

dsrogers, i do not want to install open office to read gimp documents. i would prefer the documentation be in gif format over doc. funny that i should be as fond of you as i am and still have you accusing me of things.

all along, i have been glad that someone who seemed capable (even if quite easily frightened and so wanting to be seen as scary and rough on women) was handling this legalese crap.

not using doc format was a really good suggestion, and an agreement with a long time gimp developer -- please do not eh, boost yourself by treating it as a what(?), threat from me.

or it was a not good suggestion. it was in no way goading. i do not goad, unless you consider seconding an already expressed opinion goading. and that is a stretch.

carol

Carol Spears wrote:

On Sun, May 02, 2004 at 08:04:04PM +0200, David Neary wrote:

(we use their toolkit and
infrastructure, a few years ago they used to use our toolkit),

did the name change?

as far as i know it is still the gimp tool kit.

There are only a very small number of people who really believe this to be still the case. It may still be called the GIMP Toolkit (but more & more I've heard it called the GNOME Toolkit), but that is a historical nod. The GIMP Toolkit is less a GIMP project than the GIMP Print drivers.

i was quite embarrassed for gnome when i saw how the elections worked on the irc. i know the irc is not really the same as the mail and the official business and such, however -- it was the only view i got at that point.

Not sure what you're talking about here - GNOME Foundation elections work by sending a unique mail to every member of the GNOME Foundation, and then automatically parsing the reply to that mail to verify the identity of the sender, the ID on the mail and their voting preferences. No voting is done on IRC.

Cheers, Dave.

Hi Dan,

Daniel Rogers wrote:

And if you are not a non-profit you need to pay taxes, wether or not you make money. (and if GIMP joins GNOME and abandons TGF, I'm the one that has to pay the 800 dollar minimum tax, I might add).

I think that everyone should pool in together to pay this. I have a paypal account, if we use it for nothing else, we should use it to raise the $800 for this.

Cheers, Dave.

On 2 May 2004, at 23:24, Carol Spears wrote:

not using doc format was a really good suggestion,

The solutions mankind has come up with to increase readability are diverse, and range from using open document formats to using capitals at the beginning of sentences and for the word 'I'. I recommend using them all.

Hi,

Dave Neary writes:

There are only a very small number of people who really believe this to be still the case. It may still be called the GIMP Toolkit (but more & more I've heard it called the GNOME Toolkit), but that is a historical nod. The GIMP Toolkit is less a GIMP project than the GIMP Print drivers.

I disagree. Every time we port GIMP to new features of the GIMP toolkit I get the strong impression that we are the first using the new API. There's certainly a lot of interaction between GIMP and GTK+, way more than between GIMP and the gimp-print project.

Sven

Hi,

Daniel Rogers writes:

See the problem I see with the GINPOG attitude and joining GNOME is that we are saying we are willing to take your money and your time and your developers, but we are not willing to actually show any support for you in any way. It's kinda datardly. GNOME wants to help us.

It's not that we wouldn't put a lot of effort into making GIMP work well on a GNOME desktop. Adhering to FreeDesktop standards is one of our goals and we are even working towards full GNOME HIG compliance. The only things we really want to avoid is to be forced to do any of this. Since we aren't a GNOME application, noone can force us into anything and that's a good thing.

It's just a matter of time before libgnome and libgnomeui will be completely obsoleted and all this functionality be in GTK+. At that time The GIMP will probably look and feel like any other GNOME application.

Sven

PS: See http://sven.gimp.org/gimp-new-image-dialog.png for an almost HIG compliant file-new dialog. This is a screenshot from the HEAD branch.

Sven Neumann wrote:

It's not that we wouldn't put a lot of effort into making GIMP work well on a GNOME desktop. Adhering to FreeDesktop standards is one of our goals and we are even working towards full GNOME HIG compliance. The only things we really want to avoid is to be forced to do any of this.

Above all, everyone should know you are a volunteer. And as long as you are a volunteer, noone can tell you to do anything. If they every forget this fact, you can always politely remind them (or no-so-politely tell them to sod off). And really, the above is kinda the reason I think this is a good plan. We are already moving in the direction they would want us to, thus it is quite easy to join them.

Since we aren't a GNOME application, noone can force us into anything and that's a good thing.

GNOME still can't force any volunteer to do anything. The worst damage they could do is, "do this or we we will withold some funding" but even then, you are no better off then you are now.

-- Dan

Daniel Rogers wrote:

David Neary wrote:

Are there any people opposed to closer ties with the GNOME Foundation?

Well, GIMP is not part of GNOME, and this assertion was made repeatedly over the years. Apart from labeling GIMP more of a GNOME program, I wouldn't oppose (but I don't count much anyway :)

I know, We could even change the name of the GIMP to the GINPOG it's been repeated so much. But this is a bunch of people with really close ties to the gimp (we use their toolkit and infrastructure, a few years ago they used to use our toolkit), who really want to help us both short term and long term.

See the problem I see with the GINPOG attitude and joining GNOME is that we are saying we are willing to take your money and your time and your developers, but we are not willing to actually show any support for you in any way.

Thne fears that I - as a Win32 user - have are that by moving closer to GNOME, GIMP might become too linux-centric. If those fears are unjustified, I'd be glad to presented the facts that render them invalid.

HTH, Michael

Hi,

Michael Schumacher writes:

Thne fears that I - as a Win32 user - have are that by moving closer to GNOME, GIMP might become too linux-centric. If those fears are unjustified, I'd be glad to presented the facts that render them invalid.

No facts, but since GIMP works nicely on Win32 and we don't want to change that, you can rest assured that we will not do any changes that would cause a regression on Win32.

Sven

On 3 May 2004, Sven Neumann wrote:

Hi,

Dave Neary writes:

There are only a very small number of people who really believe this to be still the case. It may still be called the GIMP Toolkit (but more & more I've heard it called the GNOME Toolkit), but that is a historical nod.

I disagree. Every time we port GIMP to new features of the GIMP toolkit I get the strong impression that we are the first using the new API. There's certainly a lot of interaction between GIMP and GTK+, way more than between GIMP and the gimp-print project.

It should be pointed out that Sven is our main point of contact between GTK and GIMP, so I'm sure he's much more aware of the continuing interaction between the two projects.

Rockwalrus

On 3 May 2004, Sven Neumann wrote:

PS: See http://sven.gimp.org/gimp-new-image-dialog.png for an almost HIG compliant file-new dialog. This is a screenshot from the HEAD branch.

Looks fantastic! I really like the "hideaway" Image Comment section.

Here are just a few minor suggestions that I think would improve the dialog:

* The "extra title bar" seems to take up a lot more space than it needs. * Center "Create a New Image" vertically (perhaps horizontally as well) * Put the size in bytes either flushed right to or directly under the "Image Size" label. Flushed right will probably look better. * Move the portrait/landscape controls to the right of the template dropdown. Grey them out when no template is selected. * Merge the two Width and Height entries, or make the second one hideaway. If you make the second one hideaway, make the top one have a dropdown units menu, so that you don't have to use the hideaway to specify image size in units other than pixel. * Consider making Resolution hideaway as well. * Resolution should have its own outdent, just like Image Size does. * The units dropdowns should be centered vertically between the two entry boxes to which they apply. (It would be better if they were aligned horizontally as well, but the presence of the link control in the resolution area makes that impractical.) * Consider putting a GtkVSeparator between the "Image Type" and "Fill Type" combo box lists.

These are pretty easy to do; I would make the changes myself except that the universe seems to be conspiring against me ever having a machine that I can follow gimp-development work with. Poor Rockwalrus.

Rockwalrus

On Sat, 1 May 2004, David Neary wrote:

Hi all,

Myself and Dan Rogers will be meeting with someone from the GNOME Foundation this week with the intention of having greater co-operation with them on things like money.

For the moment, I am working under the supposition that the best option available to us is to join the GNOME Foundation.

The alternative is that Dan continue with the work involved in creating an independent GIMP Foundation.

The short term effects of doing this would be that we wouldn't have any way to accept tax-deductible donations in the US for this year, and it is unlikely (given Dan's current availability) that the foundation would have cleared up all paperwork issues and elected a board before the end of the year.

On the other hand, a partnership with the GNOME Foundation would give us federal tax exempt status in the US now. We could probably work out an arrangement where contributions made to the GIMP get used for GIMP events.

Are there any people opposed to closer ties with the GNOME Foundation?

I don't see any reason why we can't do both: work closely with the GNOME Foundation now, while the GIMP Foundation is getting off the ground, and then continuing to work with them to some extent once the GIMP Foundation is a reality.

Rockwalrus

Hi,

Nathan Carl Summers writes:

PS: See http://sven.gimp.org/gimp-new-image-dialog.png for an almost HIG compliant file-new dialog. This is a screenshot from the HEAD branch.

Looks fantastic! I really like the "hideaway" Image Comment section.

Here are just a few minor suggestions that I think would improve the dialog:

* The "extra title bar" seems to take up a lot more space than it needs.

This dialog is a GimpTemplateEditor packed into a GimpViewableDialog. It's GimpViewableDialog that creates the title and the extra space is in other GimpViewableDialogs used to display the name of the viewable (which could for example be an image or a layer). We could of course change GimpViewableDialog to show a smaller title when no name is set but I think consistency makes more sense here. Not sure though, what do others think?

* Center "Create a New Image" vertically (perhaps horizontally as well)

This also needs to be reviewed with respect to other dialogs using the same viewable-dialog widget.

* Put the size in bytes either flushed right to or directly under the "Image Size" label. Flushed right will probably look better.

I am afraid the HIG disagrees with this. But perhaps it needs to be seen on a mockup. I think the memory size is rather well placed, but let's see how this would look like.

* Move the portrait/landscape controls to the right of the template dropdown. Grey them out when no template is selected.

But they also make sense when no template is selected and allow you to easily flip width and height. Why bind them to the template selection?

* Merge the two Width and Height entries, or make the second one hideaway. If you make the second one hideaway, make the top one have a dropdown units menu, so that you don't have to use the hideaway to specify image size in units other than pixel. * Consider making Resolution hideaway as well. * Resolution should have its own outdent, just like Image Size does.

IMHO resolution and the second size group belong together. I could imagine having "Pixel Size" at the top and "Print Size" below. The "Print Size" group would contain size and resolution.

* The units dropdowns should be centered vertically between the two entry boxes to which they apply. (It would be better if they were aligned horizontally as well, but the presence of the link control in the resolution area makes that impractical.)

/me shudders

* Consider putting a GtkVSeparator between the "Image Type" and "Fill Type" combo box lists.

The idea was to make the dialog HIG compliant. The HIG clearly suggests not to use any separators and I agree that spacing is a better choice since it adds less visual noise.

I like the idea of making more use of GtkExpander in our dialogs. As you suggested, we could hide more controls in this dialog (and others). However for this to be really convenient, the dialog would have to remember the expanded/collapsed state of the frames.

Everything expect the most important settings could be collapsed by default. That would make GIMP much more accessible to newbies. The default state of the dialog could even be dependant on a level of user expertise that can be choosen. GIMP for newbies would by default only show the simple things while GIMP for experts would always come up with the full dialog expanded. While the user explores the GIMP world, she can expand more of the dialogs. Whenever a frame is left expanded, GIMP should remember that and the dialog come up like this the next time.

Sven

On 4 May 2004, Sven Neumann wrote:

Nathan Carl Summers writes:

PS: See http://sven.gimp.org/gimp-new-image-dialog.png for an almost HIG compliant file-new dialog. This is a screenshot from the HEAD branch.

Looks fantastic! I really like the "hideaway" Image Comment section.

Here are just a few minor suggestions that I think would improve the dialog:

* The "extra title bar" seems to take up a lot more space than it needs.

This dialog is a GimpTemplateEditor packed into a GimpViewableDialog. It's GimpViewableDialog that creates the title and the extra space is in other GimpViewableDialogs used to display the name of the viewable (which could for example be an image or a layer). We could of course change GimpViewableDialog to show a smaller title when no name is set but I think consistency makes more sense here. Not sure though, what do others think?

It looks seems a little awkward the way it currently is here. There are probably several ways to make it look nicer. Maybe one of the graphic artists could give more productive suggestions.

* Center "Create a New Image" vertically (perhaps horizontally as well)

This also needs to be reviewed with respect to other dialogs using the same viewable-dialog widget.

See my comment above about graphic artists.

* Put the size in bytes either flushed right to or directly under the "Image Size" label. Flushed right will probably look better.

I am afraid the HIG disagrees with this. But perhaps it needs to be seen on a mockup. I think the memory size is rather well placed, but let's see how this would look like.

My concern is that currently the image size is visually associated most closely with the portrait/landscape control. Perhaps the best solution is to have a "Memory Required" outdent at either the top or the bottom, and have the size after that.

* Move the portrait/landscape controls to the right of the template dropdown. Grey them out when no template is selected.

But they also make sense when no template is selected and allow you to easily flip width and height. Why bind them to the template selection?

I thought that they didn't work without templates, but it turns out that I just tested them on a square image. :) OK, they are useful for non-templated images, so instead, I suggest that we keep them where they are, and grey them out if the image is square.

* Merge the two Width and Height entries, or make the second one hideaway. If you make the second one hideaway, make the top one have a dropdown units menu, so that you don't have to use the hideaway to specify image size in units other than pixel. * Consider making Resolution hideaway as well. * Resolution should have its own outdent, just like Image Size does.

IMHO resolution and the second size group belong together. I could imagine having "Pixel Size" at the top and "Print Size" below. The "Print Size" group would contain size and resolution.

This makes a whole lot of sense. Make "print size" and "print resolution" be one hideaway group.

* The units dropdowns should be centered vertically between the two entry boxes to which they apply. (It would be better if they were aligned horizontally as well, but the presence of the link control in the resolution area makes that impractical.)

/me shudders

OK, so alignment isn't plausable, but the units still should be centered between the width (or x) and height (or y) entry boxes so that it is more clear that it applies to both of them.

* Consider putting a GtkVSeparator between the "Image Type" and "Fill Type" combo box lists.

The idea was to make the dialog HIG compliant. The HIG clearly suggests not to use any separators and I agree that spacing is a better choice since it adds less visual noise.

The HIG guidelines suggest that "[b]efore you add a frame with a visible border or separator to any window, consider carefully if you really need it. It is usually better to do without, if the groups can be separated by space alone. Do not use frames and separators to compensate for poor control layout or alignnment." It's not an ironclad prohibition.

(http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/controls.html#controls-frames)

I refer to my reply to sjburges for my rationale in this suggestion, but I'll point out here that it's not because of poor control layout or alignment. I'll also say that I can't think of any way to re-arrainge the controls that would be better.

I like the idea of making more use of GtkExpander in our dialogs. As you suggested, we could hide more controls in this dialog (and others). However for this to be really convenient, the dialog would have to remember the expanded/collapsed state of the frames.

Agreed. Is the session-state stuff we have now a good candidate?

Everything expect the most important settings could be collapsed by default. That would make GIMP much more accessible to newbies. The default state of the dialog could even be dependant on a level of user expertise that can be choosen. GIMP for newbies would by default only show the simple things while GIMP for experts would always come up with the full dialog expanded. While the user explores the GIMP world, she can expand more of the dialogs. Whenever a frame is left expanded, GIMP should remember that and the dialog come up like this the next time.

I tend to dislike "newbie modes." I think that having dialogs come up unexpanded the first time, and then remembering the current state would be pretty much the same as your suggestion in practicality.

Rockwalrus

Hi,

Nathan Carl Summers wrote:

On Sat, 1 May 2004, David Neary wrote:

Are there any people opposed to closer ties with the GNOME Foundation?

I don't see any reason why we can't do both: work closely with the GNOME Foundation now, while the GIMP Foundation is getting off the ground, and then continuing to work with them to some extent once the GIMP Foundation is a reality.

There is only one - a coprporation in California (the state that the GIMP Foundation is incorporated in) has a minimum income tax charge of $80year, even if you don't do anything.

So while we're not doing anything with the GIMP Foundation, someone's out of pocket for that.

Of course, we might decide that's something we're prepared to do, and chip in once a year to get the $800 among ourselves, or solicit funds for that. But it's a consideration which means that it's hard to do nothing with a GIMP Foundation (in addition, a foundation that's doing nothing will not easily get non-profit status).

Cheers,
Dave.

On 3 May 2004, at 12:51, Sven Neumann wrote:

Every time we port GIMP to new features of the GIMP toolkit I get the strong impression that we are the first using the new API.

Is this phenomenon constricted to GTK?

On 3 May 2004, at 9:05, Daniel Rogers wrote:

Sven Neumann wrote:

It's not that we wouldn't put a lot of effort into making GIMP work well on a GNOME desktop. Adhering to FreeDesktop standards is one of our goals and we are even working towards full GNOME HIG compliance. The only things we really want to avoid is to be forced to do any of this.

Above all, everyone should know you are a volunteer. And as long as you are a volunteer, noone can tell you to do anything.

The law can. The GPL has this nice provision stating that, since we're all volunteers and we're giving the stuff away, you cannot hold us responsible if the GIMP blows up in your face. However, judges hold a dimmer view of such provisions.

Of course, this has little to do with the GNOME Foundation, I just wanted to point out that your reasoning was less than perfect, and that if I can think of an exception, there may be more, and more relevant ones at that.

Since we aren't a GNOME application, noone can force us into anything and that's a good thing.

GNOME still can't force any volunteer to do anything. The worst damage they could do is, "do this or we we will withold some funding" but even then, you are no better off then you are now.

If the funding was given to the GNOME Foundation with the im- or explicit wish it be used for GIMP development, the donor would rightfully feel cheated.

Hi,

"Branko Collin" writes:

On 3 May 2004, at 12:51, Sven Neumann wrote:

Every time we port GIMP to new features of the GIMP toolkit I get the strong impression that we are the first using the new API.

Is this phenomenon constricted to GTK?

No, but we aren't using many other APIs than GTK+ (and it's dependencies). It's certainly not something I want to blame anyone for. I just wanted to say that GIMP is still pretty much at the bleeding edge of GTK+ development.

Sven

Hi,

Nathan Carl Summers writes:

It should be pointed out that Sven is our main point of contact between GTK and GIMP, so I'm sure he's much more aware of the continuing interaction between the two projects.

I'd say the main contact and the one who writes the most patches for GTK+ is Mitch.

Sven

Branko Collin wrote:

On 3 May 2004, at 9:05, Daniel Rogers wrote:

Above all, everyone should know you are a volunteer. And as long as you are a volunteer, noone can tell you to do anything.

The law can. The GPL has this nice provision stating that, since we're all volunteers and we're giving the stuff away, you cannot hold us responsible if the GIMP blows up in your face. However, judges hold a dimmer view of such provisions.

Of course, this has little to do with the GNOME Foundation, I just wanted to point out that your reasoning was less than perfect, and that if I can think of an exception, there may be more, and more relevant ones at that.

I am talking about people at GNOME. Not the law. The law could strike down the GPL as invalid and unenforcable (not that I see that happening any time soon).

GNOME still can't force any volunteer to do anything. The worst damage they could do is, "do this or we we will withold some funding" but even then, you are no better off then you are now.

If the funding was given to the GNOME Foundation with the im- or explicit wish it be used for GIMP development, the donor would rightfully feel cheated.

No no, I'm talking about general funds. Not sure if GNOME would withhold funds specifically given to us, that is a slighly different situation. I am talking about funding from GNOME's general pool of funds. Also, I don't actually expect them to do something like this. GNOMe wants to help us.

--
Dan

Daniel Rogers wrote:

No no, I'm talking about general funds. Not sure if GNOME would withhold funds specifically given to us, that is a slighly different situation. I am talking about funding from GNOME's general pool of funds. Also, I don't actually expect them to do something like this. GNOMe wants to help us.

A non-profit that receives a restricted donation is legally prohibited from using it for any purpose other than that stated in the restriction. If the non-profit receiving the donation is unwilling to accept the restriction, it must refuse (or return) the donation.

So if you give money to the GNOME Foundation with a codicil that it be used to further GIMP development, they can't legally use it for any other purpose. However, the codicil is interpreted pretty strictly, so "to further GIMP development" is too vague and they could use that to cover administrative costs on the grounds that that "furthers GIMP development". You'd have to give money with a pretty strong codicil ("these funds shall be used only to pay the wages of not more than five developers to work on the implementation of feature X in product Y") to ensure that all the money you give will get to the project you want. And most donors simply don't bother to have their lawyers go over their gift endorsement before signing the check.

I'd be very surprised if the GNOME Foundation passed along *all* funds untouched donated with a simple earmark for the GIMP to the GIMP people; I would fully expect them to take an "administrative fee" of between 5% and 50% (maybe even more). You might want to have an agreement in writing on this point before you start using them to fundraise.

Kelly

Kelly Martin wrote:

I'd be very surprised if the GNOME Foundation passed along *all* funds untouched donated with a simple earmark for the GIMP to the GIMP people; I would fully expect them to take an "administrative fee" of between 5% and 50% (maybe even more). You might want to have an agreement in writing on this point before you start using them to fundraise.

Dave neary and I talked to Tim Ney about this. There is goign to be a small cut taken by TGF. It is very close to the lower end of your range, but I won't know specifically until the board approves the number (which they are supposed to do soon).

-- Dan

Daniel Rogers wrote:

Dave neary and I talked to Tim Ney about this. There is goign to be a small cut taken by TGF. It is very close to the lower end of your range, but I won't know specifically until the board approves the number (which they are supposed to do soon).

I should stop abbreviating things. TGF here is GNOME. GNOME will take a small cut.

--
Dan

Daniel Rogers wrote:

Dave neary and I talked to Tim Ney about this. There is goign to be a small cut taken by TGF. It is very close to the lower end of your range, but I won't know specifically until the board approves the number (which they are supposed to do soon).

Another matter you should have made clear and in writing: in the event that you do choose to spin off and separate from them, you should be able to withdraw all earmarked funds (less any agreed administrative levies) to start the new organization. Absent such an agreement, you'll be on their grace to get those funds, which might not be available if the parting is on less than best terms.

Remember: I went to law school. I've been trained to contemplate the worst that can happen and so must mention it, even I don't expect it to.

Kelly

Hi,

David Neary writes:

That's the main points. We now have 3 ways immediately that people can donate to the GIMP (cheque, wire transfer and non-gnome foundation paypal account), with a 4th way to follow (GNOME Foundation paypal account). We should get this information up on all gimp sites as soon as possible.

That's very good news. I've been a little bit reluctant to welcome the move towards the GNOME foundation only because I appreciate the effort that Daniel has already put into The GIMP Foundation. But since Daniel also likes the idea, I'm all for it as well.

Sven

Hi,

A few corrections to be added:

David Neary wrote:

2) Wire transfer - instructions for making wire transfers can be obtained by e-mail to fundraising@gimp.org. You can specify that the payment is for the GIMP in the comment field of the wire transfer, or in the e-mail to the foundation. The donor should specify the currency they prefer to pay in, since EU wire transfers are considerably cheaper than in the US.

The address here should be fundraising@gnome.org. Excuse the thinko.

What we will probably do is decide what portion of a ticket we can afford to pay, and have the GIMPer affected "donate" the rest of the cost to the foundation, and then have his ticket bought for him (I'm not sure how above board this is, since as a donor his donation will be tax deductible).

This entire paragraph wasn't actually discussed at the meeting, and as such shouldn't have gone in here. It was more or less musings that I had based on a principle that we discussed, which was that tax issues are less hairy when the Foundation buys tickets or stuff for individuals rather than gives them money. This was me trying to reconcile that with the fact that we don't actually have enough money to fully pay for tickets for people.

We will need a smalish group of people who decide where the limited funds we have (or hope to have) get distributed, and co-ordinate with Tim on the distribution of funds.

We also discussed whether it would be an idea to keep a separate paypal account which wouldn't be tax deductible. I think this is a good idea, not because I begrudge the foundation their 5%, but because there is no reason to put either them or us to the trouble if there is no benefit to us or the donor.

To be clear, I was more or less alone in this, and I haven't thought a huge amount about it. Tim recommends not exposing any individual to tax liability because they are the person handling funds for an event like this, and having all transactions go through an association's books. That was also the main reason we set up the foundation in the first place.

On that point, Sven, how did you handle this last year?

Now that I think about it, I'm not so sure I'd like to put myself in that position either. But there definitely needs to be discussion on this point.

Cheers, Dave.

Hi,

On Tue, 2004-05-04 at 23:24, Sven Neumann wrote:

That's very good news. I've been a little bit reluctant to welcome the move towards the GNOME foundation only because I appreciate the effort that Daniel has already put into The GIMP Foundation. But since Daniel also likes the idea, I'm all for it as well.

Yes - if Dan who is the one having spent lots of time investigating the possibilities of the GIMP Foundation recommends joining the GNOME Foundation I am all for it.

As I expressed at GIMPCon2003 the only role I see for the Foundation is to be a way to receive donations. It seems that partnering up with the GNOME Foundation will give us this opportunity.

Regards, Brix

Hi,

On Mon, 2004-05-03 at 10:01, Dave Neary wrote:

Daniel Rogers wrote:

And if you are not a non-profit you need to pay taxes, wether or not you make money. (and if GIMP joins GNOME and abandons TGF, I'm the one that has to pay the 800 dollar minimum tax, I might add).

I think that everyone should pool in together to pay this. I have a paypal account, if we use it for nothing else, we should use it to raise the $800 for this.

Of course. Dan should not have to pay this out of his own pocket.

Regards, Brix

Henrik Brix Andersen wrote:

Hi,

On Tue, 2004-05-04 at 23:24, Sven Neumann wrote:

That's very good news. I've been a little bit reluctant to welcome the move towards the GNOME foundation only because I appreciate the effort that Daniel has already put into The GIMP Foundation. But since Daniel also likes the idea, I'm all for it as well.

Yes - if Dan who is the one having spent lots of time investigating the possibilities of the GIMP Foundation recommends joining the GNOME Foundation I am all for it.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I was clear (I hope) that this is a short-term arrangement with the Foundation to fulfill our immediate need of giving people ways to donate money towards the GIMP.

The GIMP Foundation is not old news - we will have a chance to meet with Tim and some of the foundation board at the conference to discuss whether we would like to join the GNOME Foundation, and what that means exactly. But it is also possible that we do that for a few years while the GIMP Foundation gets off its feet, proves its worth and gets the non-profit status which we hope to get.

Cheers, Dave.