Why I will vote *AGAINST* the dis-incorporation of LUV motion and why I also ask You to do the same.


On 3 September, the LUV AGM will be held.  Its Members will be asked to cast their vote on undoubtedly the most important motion ever brought before them in the history of LUV.  This motion will ask them to vote on a resolution to:

    “Dis-incorporate LUV as an incorporated body in the State of Victoria, and as a consequence the activities currently undertaken by LUV will be carried out by a Sub-Committee of Linux Australia (LA)”.

While the actual wording of the motion may vary, in essence the above is what Members will be asked to vote on.

I have decided to vote *AGAINST* this motion, and I ask you to emphatically reject it as well.  I explain further below why I believe it should be voted *AGAINST*.

Furthermore, I believe that rather than just me voting against, I am also considering moving an alternative motion at the earliest opportunity that could bring substantial gain to all, and that address the reasons advanced in support of the proposed dissolution motion AND at the same time lead to a range of longer term benefits to LUV and LA , and potentially the wider Linux and Open Source Community in Australia.


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Note that for LUV Members to even get an opportunity to consider and vote on the alternative motion that I am considering,  there is no option but to vote *AGAINST* the disincorporation motion, if the  latter is presented before my proposed motion.

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It appears that some of you feel that there is an air of “fait accompli” floating about on the mailing lists about the disincorporation motion.  I may respond directly and specifically to this issue in a separate post later, as there are matters which may be considered as important associated to this, and that LUV Members might wish to be made aware of.  I am still making up my mind on whether in my capacity of LUV Vice-President it is incumbent upon me to bring these to your attention.  It is very far from the truth that this is a “done deal”!


I believe that the proposed LUV disincorporaton motion must get an *AGAINST* vote because:

1. It achieves nothing at all and in the long term potentially can cause adverse consequences on Linux and Open Source Community in Victoria and elsewhere.

2. It is bad for LUV Members.

3. Worse, it is  bad for LUV as an incorporated body

4. And worse still it is most probably bad for LA in the longer term!

Please consider, what you are being asked to vote on:

“... disincorporation of LUV, Inc., and to convert Linux Users of Victoria as a subcommittee
of Linux Australia, Inc.In the event of winding up, the assets of the association must be disposed in accordance to the provisions of the Act.”


My understanding is that this move is supposed to:

(1). relieve members of the LUV Committee of having to deal with administrative duties and thereby allowing them to concentrate on tasks and activities that are more directly beneficial to LUV Members. 

(2). bring efficiencies in resource usage and eliminate duplication of some tasks.

(3). possibly bring improved access to LA funds for activities and improved financial situation.

(4). somehow be good because Victorian Members on the LA Council will be able to be more involved.


(1). above, presumes that the Committee members believe that they are burdened by duties that is affecting their ability to carry out activities more directly beneficial to Members. It is even implied that time spent attending to administrative tasks constitute misused time, and that the Committee Member’s effort would better redirected to more ‘Linuxy’ activities.

However in the 4 years that I have been a member of the LUV Committee, including 2 years as Vice President, I cannot recall single moment where any action has failed due to any Committee Member being unable to put in the time and effort toward achieving that action because he or she was forced to attend to another administrative task of LUV instead.  There is no evidence or even any indication, that Committee Members actions are being held back by administrative burden.   There is no reason to believe that if a Committee Member did not have to attend to an administrative task, that Member would have been attending to a ‘Linuxy’ task instead. 

Lets remember that LUV Committee Members are volunteers.  They bring in skills and values to LUV of their own accord.  In my view to even suggest that they are misusing or wasting their time is bordering on insult!  

I utterly reject the idea that the time, effort and diligence put into his duties by Wen Lin as Treasurer of LUV in the last few years was misused time on his part!  And that applies to every other Committee Member who have devoted their time and effort in the past.  To me this is *their* contribution to LUV in the manner that they see *they can best serve* the organisation.  And I am grateful to everyone of them, and will never attempt to diminish the value of their contribution.  I therefore cannot contemplate voting for a motion that devalues their efforts by suggesting that it was misused time.


(2). above. address what is essentially an internal organisational issue.   There are many ways to address this and disincorporation is certainly NOT the only option!  In the last 4 years, the Committee has never had to consider this issue at any length, if ever at all.  Its not an issue impeding LUV activities. To suggest that LUV has a problem here that can only be resolved by a disincorporaton is extremely misguided.  However I agree that attempting to improve efficiency is a worthy task.   This is one of the reasons that I am considering an alternative motion, that can bring improved efficiency while preserving LUV intact as incorporated body and with all the gains that it has made over the time of its existence so far.


(3). above, is probably the *most misguided* belief here!!.

In fact it puts the resulting LUV-Subcommittee under LA  in a substantially much worse situation financially, worse still this Subcommittee is left with NO financial situation at all!!  All its assets are transferred to LA!!  It has nothing in its own right - ZERO!  What’s left is a “reassurance” that it will be able to access an amount of money.

Who in their right mind will give away their house fully owned by them, to a third party, on the reassurance that they will be able to live in the house, when there is absolutely NO reason why they should leave their house in the first place??

It has  been suggested that the LUV-Subcommittee will be able to access more of LA’s fund compared to LUV.   Indeed one of the funding stream available to LUV at present is the Linux Australia Grant Scheme, the purpose of which is to assist organisations and individuals  undetake ‘linuxy’ or ‘fossy’ activities and projects.

The fact is a Subcommittee of LA cannot access this fund!!  It does not meet the criteria to even apply for the fund!  *And rightly* so, or else there would be a direct conflict of interest for LA to approve money to itself (as a Subcommittee) from a fund intended to help other organisations and individuals.  But currently LUV has full entitlement to this fund. It has in the past received money from it, and indeed as a LUG it probably is in a better position to qualify for this money than other organisations or individual.  The LUV-Subcommittee will be disqualified from accessing this fund. (see http://linux.org.au/projects/grants)

This leaves the LUV Subcommittee having to rely on internal operating expenses of LA to fund all activities it may wish to carry out, and dependent on the budget policies of the latter.   Indeed that is how it should be, as a subcommittee it becomes entirely dependent on operating expenses of its mother organisation to fund its activities.  This also means it will have to compete with other Sub-Committees, and allocated funds only at the discretion of the Council as it sees fit.  It can only spend funds as the LA Council may allow it to do so. It has no autonomy on its own right, but only reassurances of such.


Which brings me to another VERY important consideration!  The LA council is only elected for one year.  (btw only a few months left for this council to run its course) There is absolutely ZERO guarantee that a future Council will want to honour any “reassurrances” given by the current one.    A future Council has every right to have a completely different set of priorities and agenda where it considers that the current subcommittee structure does not meet its aims.   It may not consider that the activities carried by a LUV-subcommittee are of any value towards it achieving its mission.  It can decide to implement policies at odds with a LUV-Subcommittee.  Even worse, it can even be elected on a platform whereby it will review the existing sub-committee structure and replace it with another one, where a LUV-subcommittee may have a very diminished or even no role at all to play.

I cannot over emphasise that these are genuine risks be it big or small. 

This brings me to the sponsorship issue, while the LA Council may give reassurances (fwiw!) that the LUV-Subcommittee will still be able to receive sponsorship as it currently does, what it cannot do is guarantee that the Sponsors will see the same incentive for them to give sponsorship to a Subcommittee of LA, as it currently does to LUV - It is a completely different proposition to give money to a Subcommittee with no legal rights of its own,  as it is to give money to a body incorporated under State laws (of Vic)!  If instead the Sponsor decides to give the money straight to LA, then the LUV subcommittee has NO reason to claim any right to this money, and it is entirely up to LA how they spend it.

Morever there are sources of sponsorship which will likely become out of reach to a sub-committee of LA.   LUV in the past has received money from the Victorian Government through Multi- Media Victoria.  (eg past Software Freedom Day events)  It is hardly conceivable that the Victorian Government would consider giving any sponsorship to a body incorporated in the state of NSW, which LA is.  It cannot even give money to a sub-committee, and will have to be to the mother organisation, if it ever did.


(4). the view that it will somehow be better because Victorian Members of the LA Council will be able to be more involved, is also fundamentally misguided.  I refer to a post to the list by Lev Lafayette where he elaborates on the difference between between a Unitary and Federated organisation.  In a Unitary organisation, which LA is, Council members have NO requirement to “look after their constituent” so to say.  In fact acting in a way that explicitly benefit a group of people based on the fact that they are regionally closer to them may well be viewed as inappropriate and constitute a conflict of interest.  What would one think if the current President of LA who is a Tasmanian took a decision or acted in a way that specifically benefited Tasmanians at the expense of others?  I doubt that this would be viewed with favour.

Furthermore, there is nothing now that prevents the Victorian members of the LA Council to be more involved in LUV.  This is matter for them on how they are able to organise their time.  Kathy Reid, the current LA Secretary is already involved in the Geelong Chapter of LUV.   A disincorporation of LUV will unlikely change anything in Kathy’s ability to attend to Victorian matters.


What I have set in the paragraphs above invalidates all the 4 claims proposed in favour of the disincorporation motion.


This motion bad for LA.

This motion may well lead to a situation detrimental to LA.  It creates a precedence (actually it adds to one already created earlier), whereby LUGs or other friendly organisation have their activities taken over by LA Sub-committees.   Imagine a situation where all similar organisations from left, right and centre become LA Subcommittees, we end up with  LA  heavily burdened by the need to support and administer the activities of many Sub-committees!  It is highly likely that there will be conflicts arising between the needs of these sub-committees.  I cannot see how this can be good for LA or the LUV-Subcommittee.    This is why I said at the start, this motion achieves nothing, because we end up in a situation where the LUV-subcommittee can be caughtup in administrative burden higher up the organisation hierarchy, with potentially worse effects on LUV activities than the “supposed admin burden” placed upon its Committee Members now!  In fact the LUV-Subcommittee is left at the mercy of a larger administration.

Furthermore as alluded to by Les Kitchen in one of his post on the list, it also creates a single point of failure in the Linux Open Source Community, a single centre of decision making or power, whereby a single mistake or poor decision by LA can lead to adverse effects on all of the Linux and Open Source Community in Australia.  I realise we are not there, but a disincorporation and convertion to a LA Subcommittee constitute a step in that direction.
Thats BAD, very BAD

If its bad for LA, how can it be good for a Subcommittee of LA?


In fact there is one way that this motion, if passed can bring tangible gains to LA. This is whereby LA, after absorbing LUV, acquiring its assets (ie very modest bank balance), possibly gaining access to LUV’s current sponsorship moneys, actually or/and subsequently dissolves the LUV-Subcommittee!!    


I simply cannot in all justice support the motion of disincorporation of LUV and have explained the main reasons for my decision to vote *AGAINST*.

If any of the above resonates with your views, I believe you also will be to also be reject this motion.

I hope I have helped you form your opinion on whats being proposed.


..... And I still have not said anything yet about the motion under consideration my me! 

That will come in a subsequent post. 


Cheers
Daniel.

PS: it was a long read, but I don't know if making it shorter would have given this matter the justice it deserves.