DataPortability Legal Structure

[Chris Saad]

Hi everyone.

So as most of you have heard by now Michael Arrington and the
Techcrunch team want to donate some money to the Project. We also have
pro-bono lawyers we can call on for the paperwork. In addition we have
received additional offers of some sponsorship.

Read a little more about it here:
http://chrissaad.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/techcrunch-donates-6625-to-dataportability/

So for this to happen, we need to set up a legal entity and have
decision makers to make transparent decisions about how the money is
spent.

My suggestion is as follows:

We (the founders) select 6 members of the founding team to seed the
board
The 6 founders select 12 industry luminaries and put them up for a
community vote
The community votes and the top 6 are invited to join the board
The board then selects a way to replace itself

The board's primary responsibility at the moment would be to deal with
the legal entity and the finances. The rest of the decision making
would remain as it is now.

Is there any violent descent to this idea or any better ideas?

Chris

[Chris Saad]

To clarify - I mean it would select a process of succession to replace
itself after x period of time or via x methodology. Not replace itself
immediately.

Cheers,

Chris

On Apr 16, 6:32 pm, Chris Saad <chris.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone.
>
> So as most of you have heard by now Michael Arrington and the
> Techcrunch team want to donate some money to the Project. We also have
> pro-bono lawyers we can call on for the paperwork. In addition we have
> received additional offers of some sponsorship.
>

> Read a little more about it here:http://chrissaad.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/techcrunch-donates-6625-to-...

[Brady Brim-DeForest]

Chris,

At first glance this sounds like a reasonable plan – but I am
interested to see what kind of other ideas are floated around. There
were some discussion threads last month that addressed this issue.
I'll see if I can dig them up.

Typically, Director's (of the Board) terms are limited in an
organization's bylaws to serve for a certain period of time (2 years
is not uncommon). In order to ensure continuity of at least half of
the board, some amount (lets say 50%) of the original 12 board members
you have suggested would serve for perhaps one year. This would make
for Board elections of at least half of the board membership every
year.

I am assuming that the organization would be incorporated in
California - please correct me if this assumption is wrong.
Would we seek 501(c)(3) (non-profit) status?

I am extremely interested in this discussion. I imagine that a
dedicated conference call on this topic is in order.

Talk soon,
Brady

[Brady Brim-DeForest]

For reference, here is the discussion thread from mid-March:

http://groups.google.com/group/dataportability-public/browse_thread/thread/af624945a31b0b64/57aae42582099e9b?lnk=gst&q=Forming+a+DataPortability+Entity#57aae42582099e9b

[Chris Saad]

Brady,

A few responses below

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 6:41 PM, Brady Brim-DeForest <bra...@gmail.com> wrote:

Chris,

At first glance this sounds like a reasonable plan – but I am
interested to see what kind of other ideas are floated around.  There
were some discussion threads last month that addressed this issue.
I'll see if I can dig them up.

We did indeed discuss if we *should* have a legal entity - but I think that with sponsorship dollars coming in we need to make this happen so that transparency is maintained for the community.
 

Typically, Director's (of the Board) terms are limited in an
organization's bylaws to serve for a certain period of time (2 years
is not uncommon). In order to ensure continuity of at least half of
the board, some amount (lets say 50%) of the original 12 board members
you have suggested would serve for perhaps one year.  This would make
for Board elections of at least half of the board membership every
year.

Sure - I guess we can leave most of this up to the lawyers and more experienced people to handle - I am sure there is plenty of precedent ;)
 

I am assuming that the organization would be incorporated in
California - please correct me if this assumption is wrong.
Would we seek 501(c)(3) (non-profit) status?

Again I don't want to lock us into a specific entity type right now because the Laywers and others who have done this before may have good suggestions.

For example, I have been told that BigCos often find it hard to engage with Non-profits for various legal reasons and prefer to deal with 'For-profits'. In that case a 'Fo-profit' with a directive to spend all profits back on the community might be in order (and achieve the same effect). Of course this the tax write off issue - but again, we will need to get advise on this at the point of registration..

I am extremely interested in this discussion. I imagine that a
dedicated conference call on this topic is in order.

Sure!
 

Talk soon,
Brady

--
Chris Saad

FaradayMedia - For Audiences of One
Particls - Are You Paying Attention?
Engagd - The Open Attention Platform
Media 2.0 Workgroup - Social, Democratic, Distributed
APML - Your Attention Profile
DataPortability - Connect, Control, Share, Remix

[Phil Wolff]

1. What do you see as the management structure of the new organization?

2. Will the foundation's charter be different than the volunteer organization's? Or will they become one organization?

3. What will the new charter be?

4. I've heard an even number of board members sets things up for tied votes. Something to ask the lawyers.

5. Is 12 too many directors? Seems a large team for a small organization.

6. Responsibilities of directors?

7. Do we have a conflict-of-interest provision for directors? What interests might conflict?

--
Phil Wolff
managing editor, Skype Journal
http://SkypeJournal.com
pwo...@skypejournal.com
skype:evanwolf
+1-510-444-8234 San Francisco
+1-646-461-6123 New York
+44 020 8816 8780 London
+852 8175 8107 Hong Kong
http://www.linkedin.com/in/philwolff
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=724232370

[Brady Brim-DeForest]

@Chris

>
> We did indeed discuss if we *should* have a legal entity - but I think that
> with sponsorship dollars coming in we need to make this happen so that
> transparency is maintained for the community.
>

I am fully in agreement here. With money coming in, setting up a legal
entity is a necessity.

>
> Again I don't want to lock us into a specific entity type right now because
> the Laywers and others who have done this before may have good suggestions.
>
> For example, I have been told that BigCos often find it hard to engage with
> Non-profits for various legal reasons and prefer to deal with 'For-profits'.
> In that case a 'Fo-profit' with a directive to spend all profits back on the
> community might be in order (and achieve the same effect). Of course this
> the tax write off issue - but again, we will need to get advise on this at
> the point of registration..
>

Absolutely. We should investigate both avenues. Participation of
major vendors is obviously mission critical, so we need to ensure that
whatever steps we take to proceed take this into account.

@Phil,

Great questions.

> 1. What do you see as the management structure of the new organization?

The board will serve a number of functions: fulfilling the legal
requirement to have a board once we incorporate, dealing with
financial matters, etc. The participatory democratic nature of this
organization should not change. Our transparency and community driven
ethos must not be compromised by forming a legal structure for
DataPortability.

> 2. Will the foundation's charter be different than the volunteer
> organization's? Or will they become one organization?

My thought is that they should be one organization. Decisions about
the for-profit or non-profit status of the corporation may effect this
decision, however.

> 3. What will the new charter be?

Hopefully we will have the same charter. Obviously, we will need all
of the official legal documents, like Articles of Incorporation and
Bylaws...

> 4. I've heard an even number of board members sets things up for tied votes.
> Something to ask the lawyers.

You are absolutely right. An odd number of board members is
preferable. Anywhere from 5-9 directors is a good number – but there
may be a viable reason to have more.

> 5. Is 12 too many directors? Seems a large team for a small organization.

See above.

> 6. Responsibilities of directors?

These will be be codified in the Bylaws – but off the top of my head,
I think that their responsibilities should be limited to matters
involving expenditures, contracts, etc. They shouldn't have a say in
the day to day operation of the organization.

> 7. Do we have a conflict-of-interest provision for directors? What interests
> might conflict?

Without a doubt a Conflict of Interest policy is necessary. If we go
the non-profit route, the IRS will require/strongly suggest that we
have such a policy in place.

General thoughts:

Depending on the recommendations of the legal experts, there is
nothing (besides expense perhaps) stopping us from forming both a
for-profit entity (to deal with IP issues related to relationships
with major vendors) and a non-profit community driven and supported
organization.

Lets definitely schedule a conference call. What is everyone's coming
week looking like?

-Brady

[Chris Saad]

+1 to everything Brady said :)

Great questions Phil!

[Mary Trigiani]

This is good news. Question: what's our timeline for enacting the
foundation? If it's short, let's make sure we have even just 48 hours
for people to make suggestions. Then we work with the lawyers to come
up with the optimal structure. Chris, we should work hard to ensure
that all viewpoints are presented to the lawyers.

[Mary Trigiani]

PS: great thinking from all of you guys. It really helps to clarify.

[Aaron Cheung]

Me no particular dissent about the structure.. perhaps am a little curious as to what do we need money for at this point.. ;-)

[Brady Brim-DeForest]

Mary, I completely agree. What kind of timeframe are we looking at?

I think it is also valuable to note Brett's contribution from the last
discussion thread:

"There's a 3rd option worth calling out explicitly at this point... hire an
Association Management firm to act as your legal umbrella. If you do this
you don't have to operate under another .org (like W3C or Liberty Alliance
or Identity Commons) and you don't have to incorporate. The firm I'm most
familiar with who offers this type of service is IEEE-ISTO (www.ieee-isto.org)."

I think we also need to address some of the important issues that come
into play for the contributor. We will need to develop an IPR policy
that governs contributions of work (code, time, etc.) to
DataPortability.

-Brady

--
Brady Brim-DeForest
OB&D Global
www.obdglobal.com

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[Brady Brim-DeForest]

Aaron, that is a great question.

Although there is not a lot of overhead at this time (correct me if I
am wrong), many of the infrastructure costs (like domain registration,
hosting, etc.) are coming out of the pocket of individuals that are
involved in DataPortability.

Over time, we will find that certain expenses will begin to crop up
(example: we want to produce stickers for the release of the new
logo). These costs should be borne by the organization not by
individual contributors.

In the more literal sense, TechCrunch has taken the generous step of
donating money to the cause – which necessitates putting that money
somewhere, which means that we need a bank account, which means that
we need a legal entity of some kind to 'own' that account.

Disclaimer: I am certainly okay with the idea of stashing all of the
cash under Chris's mattress.

-Brady

[Chris Saad]

I'm not sure about time frames quite yet - I will let others chime in there.

In regard to why we 'need' money. Money makes the world go around. Stickers, Shirts, Banners, Flyers, Flights, Hotels, Cabs, Sponsoring events, Part-time project manager wage etc etc.

Chris

[Aaron Cheung]

Brad, Chris, et al,

 

I'm in full support for DP to have a full legal structure.. but I am not too sure if DP should "rush" into a legal structure because there's money to take regardless of amount.. there're a few equally-viable options on the table, while not much in the form of motions put forward for some robert's rules kind of orders and procedures, yet there's much preparation work to do, like drafting of mandates and bylaws (if we want more than some template copy) and defining membership criteria etc, which will all take a little time to formulate.. meaning, reiterating, that we shouldn't really rush the process because there's money on the table.. :-)

 

That said, TC's effort and generosity (with 2000+ people behind it contibuting to the cash pool) I acknowledge and we should all appreciate, and the project, as and for a great and very worthwhile cause too important to be taken lightly, does need money, acknowledged.. (note my wording of, "at this point" in my last mail..) but formalizing a legal entity, be it a 501(c)(3) organization in the US, or its equivalent elsewhere in the world, or to operate under an umbrella organization (of which there're already a few too choose from, per discussions on this group so far..) is likely to take more time and preparation, than the donation money on the table eager to find home of.. ;-)

 

But, in general, all has been great and going well (without much money) as far as the DP momentum goes, and you all have my wholehearted support one way or another.. well done and thank you all, and in particular, Chris.. :-)

 

Cheers!

Aaron.

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Chris Saad

To: dataportabilit...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 11:21 AM

Subject: [DP.AG.Steering] Re: DataPortability Legal Structure

[J. Trent Adams]

Crew -

I've been MIA for the past couple days and just catching up... And
from reading the thread (as well as the Drama 2.0 posts [1]) it sounds
like we ought to set up a conference call to quickly address a couple
key questions:

A) Do we need to legalize the project status?
B) If so, should we do it ourselves, or under another banner?
C) If we do it, what is the process and who will shepherd it?
D) If we hook up to another entity, how will we select it?

We've talked about it for a while, so I'm relatively sure the answer
to the first point is "yes", but we really should make it
(transparently) clear that it is the consensus of the participants of
the project to do so.

Once that's decided, the rest of the steps should naturally fall out
from there in logical succession. Taking a strawman of the people on
the call should help steer the discussion on the subsequent points,
though it's highly likely we won't have enough knowledge (or
representative support) to make any decisions. Rather, it'll be
necessary to summarize the discussion and present it back to the
community as a whole for validation, along with a proposed action plan
(including milestones and approval steps).

The real trick, in my mind, is in empowering a small group of people
willing to put forth the effort to shepherd this process. This isn't
to say they'll make decisions for the project, but that the volunteer
participants feel these people are uncovering and presenting all of
the best options.

In related news, I believe the nascent workflow and governance
taskforce [2] was ramping up to propose a process that would (if it
was in place) have helped us through these steps. Unfortunately, it
sounds like this issue has bubbled up such that waiting for the
outcome of that process isn't in the best interests of the project.
Perhaps, however, we can take advantage of the discussion points that
lead to it's inception to help move us forward.

Finally, I believe it is necessary to provide advance notice of an
upcoming call so that we can maximize participation. To that end, I
propose we set up a call for Tuesday, April 22 at 21:00 GMT in the
Steering Group teleconference room.

I will reserve the room for that time, and if there's enough support
in response to this note, I will promote the call as the other open
teleconference calls we have had (eg. discussion lists, Upcoming,
Wiki, chat rooms, and Twitter). With this announcement in place for
the virtual town meeting on this topic, it would be hard to complain
we're not open to hearing all sides of the debate with the widest
stakeholders possible.

Support for the call on Tuesday, April 22 at 21:00 GMT?

=jtrentadams

[1] http://www.drama20show.com/2008/04/16/techcrunchs-dataportability-conflict-of-interest/
[2] http://wiki.dataportability.org/x/EgsR

> > On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 6:32 PM, Chris Saad <chris.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Hi everyone.
>
> > > So as most of you have heard by now Michael Arrington and the
> > > Techcrunch team want to donate some money to the Project. We also have
> > > pro-bono lawyers we can call on for the paperwork. In addition we have
> > > received additional offers of some sponsorship.
>
> > > Read a little more about it here:
>

> >http://chrissaad.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/techcrunch-donates-6625-to-...

>
> > > So for this to happen, we need to set up a legal entity and have
> > > decision makers to make transparent decisions about how the money is
> > > spent.
>
> > > My suggestion is as follows:
>
> > > We (the founders) select 6 members of the founding team to seed the
> > > board
> > > The 6 founders select 12 industry luminaries and put them up for a
> > > community vote
> > > The community votes and the top 6 are invited to join the board
> > > The board then selects a way to replace itself
>
> > > The board's primary responsibility at the moment would be to deal with
> > > the legal entity and the finances. The rest of the decision making
> > > would remain as it is now.
>
> > > Is there any violent descent to this idea or any better ideas?
>
> > > Chris
>
> > --
> > Phil Wolff
> > managing editor, Skype Journal
> >http://SkypeJournal.com
> > pwo...@skypejournal.com
> > skype:evanwolf
> >+1-510-444-8234San Francisco
> >+1-646-461-6123New York
> >+44 020 8816 8780London

> >+852 8175 8107Hong Kong
> >http://www.linkedin.com/in/philwolff
> > http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=724232370

[Jim Meyer]

On 4/17/08 6:02 AM, "J. Trent Adams" <jtren...@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]

> The real trick, in my mind, is in empowering a small group of people
> willing to put forth the effort to shepherd this process. This isn't
> to say they'll make decisions for the project, but that the volunteer
> participants feel these people are uncovering and presenting all of
> the best options.

Agreed. Think "facilitators" not "decision makers".

[...]

> Support for the call on Tuesday, April 22 at 21:00 GMT?

+1

--j

[Mary Trigiani]

Tuesday might be difficult, Trent -- we have Web 2.0 starting that
day. If we can swing Monday, that might be better. Speaking for
myself, I'll do Tuesday if that's our only option, however.

[Chris Saad]

Trent - missed you man :)

I agree with everything - the only thing I might add is that there is no reason why we can't go through the workflow process for this.

We can spin up a 'Legal Entity' initiative, separate mailing list and wiki space and appoint a leader for the process. Then those who are interested may join.

The deliverable: A way of accepting and handing out funds in a transparent and responsible way

I think that perhaps the leader should be someone who has done this before or worked in a large scale non-profit. The group should keep in mind, however, that, as usual, we want a very lightweight process and one that does not reduce transparency and autonomy for the wider community.

Chris

[Brett McDowell]

FWIW, I'm working on a strawman proposal but I won't be able to provide that for a few more hours.  

Trent, I support the suggestion of a conference call and I can make the time you originally suggested, but I'm generally flexible that day if the time needs to change.

-- Brett

[Chris Saad]

Oh by the way I agree with the time concern - I too will be at Web 2.0 and it will be hard to connect during that time. Can we try to do Monday instead?

Brett look forward to your proposal very much

Chris

[Brady Brim-DeForest]

A conference call is exactly what we need. April 22nd works well for
me. The sooner the better in my opinion.

I have been through the process of setting up a non-profit from
scratch a number of times and can at least speak to the process on the
small scale.

Talk soon,
Brady

[J. Trent Adams]

Crew -

Great to hear others think the call would be useful. It does seem
like it'd be better for a number of people if we shifted the call from
Tuesday to Monday.

Monday, April 21st at 21:00 GMT.

If there are no other concerns about this new time, I'll circulate it
through the channels.

=jtrentadams

On Apr 17, 1:13 pm, "Chris Saad" <chris.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh by the way I agree with the time concern - I too will be at Web 2.0 and
> it will be hard to connect during that time. Can we try to do Monday
> instead?
>
> Brett look forward to your proposal very much
>
> Chris
>

> On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 10:09 AM, Brett McDowell <brettmcdow...@gmail.com>

> wrote:
>
>
>
> > FWIW, I'm working on a strawman proposal but I won't be able to provide
> > that for a few more hours.
> > Trent, I support the suggestion of a conference call and I can make the
> > time you originally suggested, but I'm generally flexible that day if the
> > time needs to change.
>
> > -- Brett
>
> > On Apr 17, 2008, at 1:05 PM, Chris Saad wrote:
>
> > Trent - missed you man :)
>
> > I agree with everything - the only thing I might add is that there is no
> > reason why we can't go through the workflow process for this.
>
> > We can spin up a 'Legal Entity' initiative, separate mailing list and wiki
> > space and appoint a leader for the process. Then those who are interested
> > may join.
>
> > The deliverable: A way of accepting and handing out funds in a transparent
> > and responsible way
>
> > I think that perhaps the leader should be someone who has done this before
> > or worked in a large scale non-profit. The group should keep in mind,
> > however, that, as usual, we want a very lightweight process and one that
> > does not reduce transparency and autonomy for the wider community.
>
> > Chris
>

> > On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 9:32 AM, Mary Trigiani <marytrigi...@gmail.com>

[Brady Brim-DeForest]

Sounds perfect.

[Brett McDowell]

Works for me.

[Brett McDowell]

On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 1:13 PM, Chris Saad <chris...@gmail.com> wrote:

Brett look forward to your proposal very much

Chris

Ok, but I hope your expectations aren't too high!  

Below is a brief response to a number of the items raised on this thread.  It also includes a strawman proposal for how to handle this corporate sponsorship from TechCrunch in the near term.  Before you read this I just want to remind everyone that I work for Liberty Alliance... ok, read on.

Re: Incorporating... I agree with Aaron that we shouldn't rush into the creation of "the right" legal entity for DataPortability.  After all it is only $6k, right?  This feels a bit like the tail wagging the dog.  To put this into context, Liberty Alliance takes in seven figures every year and I think that's more aligned with the kind of status/scope DP is going to have to have in order to achieve its goals.  That said, I also think this corporate sponsorship from TechCrunch is a nice forcing function, so bravo to Chris for seeding this process with some urgency.  The urgency is welcome from my point of view!  So I will offer a strawman proposal (along the lines of what Brady reminded me of earlier in this thread).

Hybrid Proposal: DP finds someone else to hold the money in the short-term but simultaneously kicks-off this legal formation activity with a great sense of urgency.  Solving the short-term crisis will give us the breathing room we need to make competent decisions that (hopefully) will serve us well in the long-term.  Note also that it took Identity Commons about a year to incorporate (because incorporation is dependent on many agreements of scope, mission, function, etc.).  I don't think DP needs to take a year, and I hope it won't... but buyer beware.

Specific Options for Hybrid Proposal: This may require more explanation on a conference call, but here it goes... I can offer IEEE-ISTO, on behalf of Liberty Alliance, as the trusted agent to hold and administer the funds for DP.  Both Liberty Alliance and IEEE-ISTO have open governance structures with best-of-breed oversight controls that should meet the transparency goal.  

Challenge with this Proposal: The trick will be who decides (and how do they decide) how to spend the money?  That's why we need the governance structure for DP in place.  For example, if we move the money into IEEE-ISTO on behalf of Liberty, that means IEEE-ISTO cannot spend any of it without Liberty consent and Liberty won't consent without some clarity of who in DP has the authority to make such decisions.  The way we handle this in Liberty is that the Management Board (elected by the volunteer membership) decides (voting, quorum, etc.) who the budget manager is for each line item of the annual budget (it's usually me or someone from my staff but it could be a volunteer as well, and has been).  That then feeds into the contractual relationship Liberty has with IEEE-ISTO because they cannot spend any of the dollars (which they administer for us) without explicit written approval from the appropriate budget manager (email typically) and they require a motion of the Board to identify who those authoritative folks are (this is easier and faster than it sounds).  We also have a Finance Policy which requires any expenditure over a specific dollar amount to be co-approved by both the budget manager and the Treasurer (who is an officer of the Board elected from one of the volunteer organizations by the Board as a whole).  Not complicated, but important to have in place.  And, it works.  

Alternative to the Proposal: I've talked with the COO of IEEE-ISTO, and he's open to a discussion with DP representatives about hiring IEEE-ISTO directly to handle this (and other operational needs) on behalf of DP (i.e. no Liberty Alliance involvement).  But this would require DP to have the ability to enter into a Participating Program Agreement with IEEE-ISTO and I just don't think DP is ready for that yet.  I think using Liberty Alliance in the interim lets you get a feel for using IEEE-ISTO but with no commitments to do so at this time.  

Re: Drama 2.0... That was a lot of homework and writing just to say "they should have called it a corporate sponsorship instead of a charitable donation".  I agree with that, but I don't see a crisis here.

Re: For Profit & Non Profit... I think that's a total misnomer.  I've been running non-profits for and with Fortune 500 companies for seven years now and this has never come up.  You *do* need an IP policy to work with Fortune 500 companies.  Non-profits can (and the good ones do) have IP policies.  This is the issue I know big companies have, but I've never heard of them preferring to deal with for-profit vs. non-profit... maybe I am just not getting the context of the comment.

P.S.

A happy consequence of getting Liberty Alliance involved with DP in this very close way is the trust and cooperation it may lead to from the Liberty membership... many of whom may be key to DP success down the road (see link below):

http://www.projectliberty.org/liberty/membership/current_members

[Aaron Cheung]

Brett, a very nice one.. understood your point of urgency in that sense, and fully agree;

Just curious, since you referenced Liberty Alliance, that on the LA's current members page, noted that both [G] and Y! aren't there..

would it be convenient or appropriate to ask your sharing here if any org structure or vision mission reasons that deter them from joining?

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Brett McDowell

To: dataportabilit...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 3:57 AM

Subject: [DP.AG.Steering] Re: DataPortability Legal Structure

[Danny Ayers]

Your proposals sound good Brett.

A couple of things came to mind:

"Liberty Alliance takes in seven figures every year and I think that's more aligned with the kind of status/scope DP is going to have to have in order to achieve its goals."

That's a lot of stickers! Ok, so maybe it'll be desirable to pay people to do promo/outreach etc. But I think it's important to have a strong & clear demarcation between decision-making in terms of the groups goals and those relating to financial management, for at least two reasons:

1. if group decisions are (perceived to be) influenced by money, credibility is lost
2. if making money becomes a goal in itself, then group decisions will be influenced by money - goto 1.

I suppose ideally this would suggest total independence from policy-steering of money-steering, but it's hard to see how we could avoid having some people being involved in both sides, so some kind of monitoring is probably needed.

An IP policy should be a priority - the W3C approach should be a good guide.

Cheers,
Danny.


--
http://dannyayers.com
~
http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/this_weeks_semantic_web/

[Robyn Tippins]

I look forward to checking out all the research the teams will be
putting together. I am already leaning towards the option of going
ahead and forming a non-profit on our own, but I'm not opposed to
using a stop-gap measure in the interim, if for no other reason than
to be able to receive any donations in a timely manner.

That said, I'm hesitant to fall under an umbrella group, especially
when I know so little about them. I'm very appreciative to the IEEE/
ISTO for the offer though, and perhaps the rest of you are more
familiar with the group and it's just me that has her head stuck in
the sand?

Regardless, I'm keeping an open mind until I've seen all the
research. If my help is useful to the teams putting together the
research, please let me know.

--
Robyn Tippins
408-718-0886 office
510-579-5558 cell
PM, Developer Tools Yahoo! Platforms
Sleepyblogger.com | Gamingandtech.com

On Apr 17, 12:34 pm, "Brett McDowell" <brettmcdow...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Works for me.
>

> On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 3:24 PM, J. Trent Adams <jtrentad...@gmail.com>

[Brett McDowell]

It might be helpful for folks to poke around these websites if you
aren't familiar with these organizations... they are quite well known
with strong reputations, but apparently not so well known by the DP
community:

www.projectliberty.org
www.ieee.org
www.ieee-isto.org

-- Brett

[Aaron Cheung]

Sorry that I had to miss the teleconference due to 5am in my timezone.

If I could offer another alternative (despite I'm more in favor of the W3C track)..
which being the TRUSTe www.truste.org nonprofit, of 501(c)(6), most familiar
to us because of their seal licensing programs. And recall that we also "license"
the data portability badge... cf. -
http://www.truste.org/about/member_list.php
http://www.truste.org/about/fact_sheet.php

Yes they're of the Privacy folks. But Data Portability is presumably equally imporant.
Notwithstanding the difference in goals, their org structure is worth checking out.. /ac.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robyn Tippins" <RobynT...@gmail.com>
To: "DataPortability.Action.Steering" <dataportabilit...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 6:36 AM
Subject: [DP.AG.Steering] Re: DataPortability Legal Structure

>

[Brady Brim-DeForest]

An IETF workgroup wouldn't necessarily be a good fit for
DataPortability, but it is worth looking into their organizational
structure.

http://www.ietf.org/
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/wg-dir.html