Active Topics

 


Page 5 of 17 « First 34 5 6715 Last »
Reply
Thread Tools
dos1's Avatar
dos1 is offline dos1
2014-05-16 , 12:50
Posts: 257 | Thanked: 2,053 times | Joined on Sep 2010 @ Warsaw, Poland
#41
Originally Posted by Estel View Post
If it was problem about leadership vs. responsibility, and it was the GDC that collected money, have (or have access to) hardware required to manufacture device, and expertise in already making one, why wasn't it solved by GDC becoming both leader of project and one responsible for it? They didn't wanted such obvious solution, or was it Joerg who opposed?
GDC was never supposed to be the owner of the project. When we tried to go that route, it all clashed on trying to agree on details. Joerg came up with Neo900 idea, did a lot of work evaluating its feasibility and putting the seeds of interest into community here and there (not only Neo900 itself, but also Fremantle porting initiative and other stuff not visible at first glance) and it's understandable that he didn't want to "sell" it completely to GDC, making it fully a GDC property.

Of course it would be easier if he said "yeah, whatever, I don't care", but I don't think such attitude would be healthy for the project. It would be even more damaging than all the refunds :P
__________________
Sebastian Krzyszkowiak - https://dosowisko.net/
Long term Openmoko supporter. Owner of two Neo Freerunners, a few N900s and some others too.
Future owner of the Neo900
 

The Following 8 Users Say Thank You to dos1 For This Useful Post:
joerg_rw's Avatar
joerg_rw is offline joerg_rw
2014-05-16 , 14:04
Posts: 2,222 | Thanked: 12,651 times | Joined on Mar 2010 @ SOL 3
#42
Originally Posted by dos1 View Post
[...] and it's understandable that he didn't want to "sell" it completely to GDC, making it fully a GDC property.

Of course it would be easier if he said "yeah, whatever, I don't care", but I don't think such attitude would be healthy for the project. It would be even more damaging than all the refunds :P
Yes, but there's an even more compelling explanation why I CANNOT do this (and believe me I had preferred to actually say "yeah, whatever...", and rather avoid all this hassle we now are confronted with) : I promised N900/fremantle compatibility, and for that I'm responsible and every single one of you can call me out on it. This results in certain hw-level decisions that MUST be followed to make Neo900 the product we promised. GDC/Nikolaus comes from the Openmoko side and has a very limited experience with maemo and the original N900. So it's again about responsibility in the end, I promised sth to community and can't control that it gets implemented.
On a sidenote: I've still been on "health recovery holiday" during last week and so wasn't really involved in the discussion that resulted in Nikolaus' own analysis making him decide that the organization must change - there's been no dissent or argument. While he's perfectly aware that I'm in charge to specify such maemo-compatibility-related bits, he correctly claims that his past role in the project (holding funds == hat on) doesn't allow him (legally) to unconditionally run the project according to my decisions, and he never felt happy with that role as well. So it had to change. The project doesn't "crumple" or fall apart, it rather consolidates and approaches what initially been planned and every member of Neo900 team (incl Nikolaus) feels it should be. Sorry for the noise this causes, we tried to avoid such noise but were not able to find a smoother way.

HTH
jOERG
Last edited by joerg_rw; 2014-05-17 at 03:46.
 

The Following 16 Users Say Thank You to joerg_rw For This Useful Post:
misiak is offline misiak
2014-05-16 , 18:14
Posts: 804 | Thanked: 1,598 times | Joined on Feb 2010 @ Gdynia, Poland
#43
Originally Posted by Win7Mac View Post
Problem is, you can't donate to a commercial company without them being taxed.
Unlike tax-exempted NPOs, companies will be taxed on all income.
VAT should only come into play when selling the devices, any commercial company has to charge it.
Probably a Förderverein might be a solution.
I know, I run my own company, so I'm aware of taxes when transferring money between two companies, etc. I was only worried about the fact that bank gets some small percentage of money when recalculating between currencies, so I would rather skip the double currency change (eur -> pln -> eur) as it is pointless. Now when I think of it, I could even sign some sort of paper (and sent it to GDC using snail mail maybe?) that I don't want my money back by bank transfer, but I e.g. give permission to person XXX (let's say Joerg ) to collect my money in person and another paper stating that I give him permission to put my money to "Neo900 gmbh-or-something". By the way, when giving refunds - what about VAT tax? Let's say I paid 1 euro to GDC, part of it was VAT tax - will the refund be lowered by the VAT amount or will the full 1 euro be refunded (I'm totally skipping the part about lowering the refund by the cost of prototypes and designs so far, I know, but this is irrelevant in this question)? And can somehow the double VAT be skipped (it was paid once by GDC, now it will be paid again by "Neo900 gmbh-or-something", oh god I love taxes...)? If it cannot be skipped anyway, what is the tax difference between direct GDC-"neo900" money transfer and money transfer with buyer-in-the-middle? (if that is irrelevant to this thread, feel free to post me a pm, I have near zero knowledge about german tax law and I'm just curious)
 

The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to misiak For This Useful Post:
joerg_rw's Avatar
joerg_rw is offline joerg_rw
2014-05-16 , 18:27
Posts: 2,222 | Thanked: 12,651 times | Joined on Mar 2010 @ SOL 3
#44
of course a refund will also refund the VAT. Alas Nikolaus now needs to rollback all the transactions in his book-keeping and between GDC and tax office, but the VAT is not supposed to stay at tax office when the payment gets returned. Probably the Neo900 UG also has to pay VAT to (a different) tax office as soon as donations come in, so GDC refunds complete amount incl VAT to you (minus fees and expense already done), you are free to donate any amount to Neo900 UG, and Neo900 UG has to pay VAT to tax office again. In any case there's only one time VAT being paid, in the end. All this been a huge part of the problem we had with direct transfer of funds from GDC to Neo900 UG, though I don't know details of the troubles this caused inside GDC accounting.
On a sidenote: the UG received the tax ID today, so one more step completed.
Sorry I can check details on how to proceed on Monday the earliest, my tax advisers don't do overhours at weekend :-)
Last edited by joerg_rw; 2014-05-16 at 18:44.
 

The Following 12 Users Say Thank You to joerg_rw For This Useful Post:
Estel's Avatar
Estel is offline Estel
2014-05-16 , 21:34
Posts: 5,028 | Thanked: 8,613 times | Joined on Mar 2011
#45
Originally Posted by dos1 View Post
Joerg came up with Neo900 idea, did a lot of work evaluating its feasibility and putting the seeds of interest into community here and there (not only Neo900 itself, but also Fremantle porting initiative and other stuff not visible at first glance) and it's understandable that he didn't want to "sell" it completely to GDC, making it fully a GDC property.

Of course it would be easier if he said "yeah, whatever, I don't care", but I don't think such attitude would be healthy for the project. It would be even more damaging than all the refunds :P
Frankly, from my perspective, it would be *much* more healthy, that ~300 people getting refunds, loosing on conversion/transfer rates. and then hoping, that they will donate again. I would expect it to be a success, if half of those people decide to throw money at the project again, after receiving refund due to "who is the leader" problems (simplified a little, but it boils down to that, after all).

Of course, given the dedication that Maemo's people have for the project I may be very, very wrong, and amount of lost preorders may be negligible, even despite the incoming Pyra, which, incidentally, is similarly featured and priced device with same FOSS principles. I sincerely hope that I am - the N900's form factor (alongside Neo900 upgrades) would be a perfect thing, just as reinob said. In a year's time, I would *love* to be laughing on how silly my current pessimistic predictions were.

/Estel
__________________
N900's aluminum backcover / body replacement
-
N900's HDMI-Out
-
Camera cover MOD
-
Measure battery's real capacity on-device
-
TrueCrypt 7.1 | ereswap | bnf
-
Hardware's mods research is costly. To support my work, please consider donating. Thank You!
 
joerg_rw's Avatar
joerg_rw is offline joerg_rw
2014-05-17 , 04:03
Posts: 2,222 | Thanked: 12,651 times | Joined on Mar 2010 @ SOL 3
#46
Originally Posted by Estel View Post
Frankly, from my perspective, it would be *much* more healthy,
Thanks for your opinion, it's duly noted now.
 

The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to joerg_rw For This Useful Post:
Dave999's Avatar
Dave999 is offline Dave999
2014-05-17 , 06:50
Posts: 7,075 | Thanked: 9,073 times | Joined on Oct 2009 @ Moon! It's not the East or the West side... it's the Dark Side
#47
Do I need to invoke marshal law?

I know something was fishy when this Nicklaus guy never was in the forum but still made lots of stuff in the dark. Refund all supporters? Oh god, why...

I think something good come out of this. I don't know what but ...
__________________
Do something for the climate today! Anything!

I don't trust poeple without a Nokia n900...
 

The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Dave999 For This Useful Post:
pichlo's Avatar
pichlo is offline pichlo
2014-05-17 , 07:04
Posts: 6,447 | Thanked: 20,981 times | Joined on Sep 2012 @ UK
#48
Originally Posted by Dave999 View Post
I think something good come out of this. I don't know what but ...
I think I can answer that: it forces Neo900 UG to find its own way of collecting donations. A hassle at the start but a good thing once set up.
__________________
Русский военный корабль, иди нахуй!
 

The Following 6 Users Say Thank You to pichlo For This Useful Post:
dos1's Avatar
dos1 is offline dos1
2014-05-17 , 08:59
Posts: 257 | Thanked: 2,053 times | Joined on Sep 2010 @ Warsaw, Poland
#49
Originally Posted by Dave999 View Post
I know something was fishy when this Nicklaus guy never was in the forum but still made lots of stuff in the dark. Refund all supporters? Oh god, why...
Nikolaus just prefers to use communication tools like e-mails instead of forums and IRC. His registration here was a surprise to me But that doesn't mean something is fishy or he's in the dark. He's easily available on OpenPhoenux mailing lists, for instance, and also on our contact e-mail.

Originally Posted by pichlo View Post
I think I can answer that: it forces Neo900 UG to find its own way of collecting donations. A hassle at the start but a good thing once set up.
Couldn't say it better
__________________
Sebastian Krzyszkowiak - https://dosowisko.net/
Long term Openmoko supporter. Owner of two Neo Freerunners, a few N900s and some others too.
Future owner of the Neo900
 

The Following 6 Users Say Thank You to dos1 For This Useful Post:
Android_808 is offline Android_808
2014-05-17 , 09:00
Posts: 1,203 | Thanked: 3,027 times | Joined on Dec 2010
#50
the general feeling i'm getting is that new direction/location for donations is how it should have been from the very beginning. it's a new venture, problems arise and joerg and the others involved just have to deal with it. As has been stated already, the initial announcement could have been better worded, but communication since have shown to me that all involved are still devoted to seeing the project through.

As a extra incentive for anyone disheartened by the recent news, are there any extra pics/news on the actual development you could post to reassure them.
 

The Following 6 Users Say Thank You to Android_808 For This Useful Post:
Reply
Page 5 of 17 « First 34 5 6715 Last »

« Previous Thread | Next Thread »

 
Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 04:02.

Contact Us - Home - Archive - Top