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Foundations have quite a good tradition in Germany, and the benefits in terms of taxes, limited liability and international credibility are high. With the German-based model, activities are not limited to one country: the foundation can and will be active worldwide. In addition, the German model provides a high security and stability, as the foundation's statutes cannot be changed and, therefore, cannot be abused. Setting up a corporation or an association, on the other hand, would expose us to the risk that, if a majority of all stakeholders so decided, the statutes could be changed, even as far as removing charitable purposes. In order to provide safety and stability, not only for our users, adopters, developers and enterprises, but for the whole community, a German-based foundation is ideal. In addition, we have many active community members in Germany: the roots of the product originally lie here, we expect a lot of support from corporations and governmental bodies, and the adoption rate for free office productivity software is very high. http://challenge.documentfoundation.org/why/ |
# a foundation is fully legal person # the foundation has no members # therefore nobody can decide to change the foundations mission afterwards (f.e. no shifting of mission values or other priorities possible) # the 50.000 € is a recommendation, yes. part of the reason: only dividends and interest must be used to finance the foundations activities. the 50.000 must stay untouched forever. 50.000 € * 0,03 (average interest rate) = 1.500 € per year available for expenses # again: the foundation is a cemented full legal entity which can hold copyright owner rights