Dear LA Members,
Over recent years a number of conference sponsors have indicated that it would be easier for them to support our activities if Linux Australia were a registered charity. As Linux Australia’s role has always been to educate people about open source, the day-to-day running of the organisation won’t change if Linux Australia were to become a registered charity. Furthermore, the Linux Australia Council has sought advice from our Auditor and Accountant; both advised that becoming a charity would have no material effect on how Linux Australia is run.
For these reasons (and in light of the benefits), the Linux Australia Council would like to register Linux Australia as a charity and for this purpose an application has been submitted to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission. However, the ACNC has advised us that our application can not proceed until our Constitution explicitly lists our charitable objectives.
Before the charitable objectives can be added to the constitution the Linux Australia membership must vote in favour of the change. The authoritative text of the change can be found in the pull request:
https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/pull/38/files
The proposed change adds the following section to the constitution.
43. Objects of the association (1) The objects for which the association is established are: (a) to facilitate the communication of information relating to inventions, results, techniques, and governance of open source and related open technologies; (b) to support open source and related open technologies projects and the contributors to open source and related open technologies; (c) to support and promote the adoption of open source and related open technologies; (d) to support and promote awareness and understanding of open source and related open technologies; (e) to conduct open source and related open technologies advocacy with the government, business and civil society; (f) to create a network for related local and online open source and related open technologies communities. (2) The association must pursue charitable purposes only and must apply its income in promoting those purposes. (3) The association must manage payments and gifts to the association and ensure that they are used to further the stated objects of the association. (4) In the event of the association being wound up, its assets must go to a charitable entity whose objectives aren’t inconsistent with the stated objects of the association.
The Linux Australia Council supports this constitutional change as it allows the charitable registration to proceed and provides additional clarity on the purpose of the organisation.
To cast a vote for or against this constitutional change, please visit https://www.linux.org.au/ and
- Click on “Login” located on the top right hand side of the page and
log in. - Click on “Elections”.
- Under “Constitutional Change to add Statement of Objectives into Constitution”, click on “Vote in the election”.
Voting for this change will be open until 11:59PM (AEDT) 12th January 2020. Results of the vote will be announced during the Linux Australia AGM on the 13th of January 2020 at linux.conf.au (Gold Coast, Queensland).
Kind Regards,
Julien Goodwin
Secretary,
Linux Australia
