money handling

[Josh Berkus]

Bruce,

> The goal of SPI is not /to manage money. /Indeed, if managing money was
> not essential to the promotion of Free Software, we would not do it.

The problem with engaging in any political activity is that it amounts to a 
change of direction for SPI.   For the last three years, at least, SPI has 
been strictly a "sustain and support" organization for its projects.   That 
is, write checks, provide legal advice, hold assets ... but don't tell anyone 
what to do, or jump in where you're not invited.  

One needs only look at the recently slashdotted argument over the JVM in 
Debian licensing to see that a large portion of the Debian community would 
react strongly against any political initiatives originating from SPI.  The 
newer projects which joined probably also joined (I know PostgreSQL did) 
under the understanding that SPI was there to support but not direct.

So, overall, I think that if you want SPI to become more political, you're 
going to need to use a considerable amount of diplomacy and persuasion to get 
a consensus of opinion behind you.

-- 
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Project
Core Team Member
(any opinions expressed are my own)