Ready to join the openHAB Foundation?

All,

it is almost a year ago that I suggested to create a charity organisation around openHAB. Although the legal entity has been founded in May already, it took us a while to get everything up and running (official register entry, charity status at the financial authorities in Germany, bank accounts, website, membership application forms, etc. - this all is much more work than one would imagine…).

The good news is: The Foundation is now operational and I would be delighted to welcome many of you as members!

Let me give you some details on what this is all about:

  • The openHAB Foundation e.V. is a non-profit organisation that promotes the project in all possible ways. It e.g. hosts and runs this forum here, so that information can be easily shared, it runs the build and demo servers, publishes apps in the app stores (already available by the Foundation for iOS, Android and Pebble), etc. The only remaining service that is not yet done by it is my.openHAB, but you will soon get a separate update about that.
    Please take a minute and read http://www.openhabfoundation.org/ to understand the full mission of the Foundation.
  • It is important to note what the Foundation is NOT: It does not deal with the source code itself, i.e. it does not hold a copyright on any of it, it is not involved in architectural decisions or the general governance. These topics are left to the developer community as a whole, which decides who is maintaining the code and how processes look like and decisions are taken. The Foundation wants to support planning and managing releases (e.g. by collateral marketing activities), but not involve itself in what exactly is in it.

So who should become a member of the Foundation? Well, everyone that loves openHAB and would like to contribute to its success apart from any code contributions. We would love to have people helping on organizing events, deal with marketing and media, design the webpages and many more topics - it is all up to your creativity on how you can make the biggest impact! People taking such an active role should become “full” members - they have voting rights and thus decide on where the Foundation is going in future. You of course do not have to play any active role as a full member, this is fully up to you. But it will at least give you the chance to easily involve yourself and potentially take on some task at any time. Full members can be recognized here in the forum through a green smiley on their avatar:

Anyone that might not have the time or skills to take an active role, but still want to support the initiative can become a passive (sustaining) member - the membership fees are only 2 EUR / month (plus a one-time 10 EUR admission fee), so we hope that many will decide to support us this way. Sustaining members can be recognized by an orange smiley on their avatar:

Becoming a member is not hard: All you need to do is to fill out the membership form and send it to membership@openhabfoundation.org!

It is worth to mention for all Germans that the openHAB Foundation e.V. is an “anerkannter gemeinnütziger Verein”, which means that all membership fees and donations are deductible from your income tax.

For anyone that does not want to become a (permanent) member, but only wants to do a one time donation, this is of course also easily possible; the best way is to donate through Paypal at www.paypal.me/openHABFoundation.

Again, I would be delighted to see many of you supporting this initiative and becoming a member - if you have any questions on the why and where and how, please feel free to ask!

Best regards,
Kai

17 Likes

Hi Kai,

Stupid question but we are in Germany after all :slight_smile:

Is the foundation allowed to send out receipts? “Spendenbescheinigung”?

Regards,
Hakan

Yes:

Exactly :slight_smile:

Hi @Kai,

great idea :grinning:

But it was very tricky to fill out the form with the apple-preview or also with Acrobat Reader DC:

What is the right-issue-tracker for placing this? :wink:

Is it possible in future to receive an update to a full member e. g. by contributing localizations of oH2 and it’s documentation if its implemented? In the past i did this for the also great open-source-project QLC+ (DMX-Lightning-Software).

Regards,
Heiko

Hm, indeed, it loses the content when saving - I’ll check, what I can do about that!

What is the right-issue-tracker for placing this? :wink:

I’d suggest to discuss all foundation related stuff at https://community.openhab.org/c/foundation/miscellaneous (this category should be accessible to all foundation members - if you cannot access it, please ping me!)

Is it possible in future to receive an update to a full member e. g. by contributing localizations of oH2 and it’s documentation if its implemented?

You can become a full member at any time, even if you do not contribute anything. According to our constitution, there is also the chance to waive the membership fees, if a member takes on other duties on behalf of the foundation; but this is rather an exceptional case and needs board approval and is discussed on an individual basis.

Is it also a not for profit organization in the US?

No, it is registered in Germany and only has an official address there. We might consider having a subsidiary in the US and go through all the legal processes that are required for that. But that’s rather something mid-term and we will definitely need support by US residents - since it was already hard enough for me to figure out all the German laws around non-profit status :slight_smile:

Hi @Kai,

is there the possibility to send the filled-out membership form by e.g. FAX or encrypted email?

Best,
Jack

The official channel is (unencrypted) email to membership@openhabfoundation.org - if this is something you are not comforable with, just PM me!

@Kai,

i’m very happy to be a member of the foundation, but i can’t access https://community.openhab.org/c/foundation/miscellaneous - could you please add me?

Regards,
Heiko

Thanks for noticing - this category was so far only available to full members, I have now also granted access to sustaining members, so you should see it now!

Sorry, that don’t works now for me.

Maybe that sustaining members and beta-testers like me could support maintainers like you in future with some support in the community and so on. at the moment it looks like you have to do everything - coding, reviewing, community management and so on :wink:

Hi @kai,

I am keen to support this, but am having difficulty with the payment options. Is there an option for me to transfer the funds directly, in advance, rather than setting up a direct debit?

Cheers,
Mike

Nope … :joy:

Hi Mike,

unfortunately, there is no other payment option than listed on the membership application form.

As the openHAB Foundation e.V. is a non profit organisation, we are just working with volunteers for several tasks/jobs, who are doing this besides their normal day work. Therefore we had to create simple processes and workflows.
For simplification of the bookkeeping and handling of membership fees, we have limited the payment methods for individuals to just two, SEPA withdraw for people living in the SEPA region, and Paypal withdraw for people outside the SEPA countries.

I hope for your understanding.

Best Regards
Hans-Jörg
CFO of openHAB Foundation e.V.

And now?

Works :slight_smile:

Hi all,

just for a clarification.

For everyone outside the SEPA region choosing the PayPal payment option, we don’t need any bank account details, just add your PayPal linked e-mail address to the application form.
openHAB Foundation e.V. will then send out a payment request, once any fees are due.

Best Regards
Hans-Jörg

2 Likes

Great step and Iam proud and happy about our progress.
But @Kai why you have a star avatar…iam jelous :wink:

Welcome and thanks to all new members…

BR Mehmet