I think it would be benificial for pmOS to have a legal entity. The team is growing and we are trying to get more money from grants and donations. This issue is to start a discusison within the team if this idea should be followed or not and also to discuss some ideas how to realize this. **Benefits of having a legal entity:** * business oprations with taxable invoices, bank accounts etc. * legal representation in case of juristical challanges * warrenty related topics * continutation of operations if one ore more core member are inhibited **Cons:** * efforts/costs required with creating&maintaining the entity --> less ressource(s) for development work. * stress in the team due to diferent new roles * audits/review from external parties _Which legal entity could be used? some first ideas:_ * (charitable) foundation - aka non-profit foundation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_(nonprofit) * Registered association - like in Austria/Germany/Switzerland: eingetragener Verein - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_association_(Germany) The registered association in Germany can also apply for charitable status (German: Gemeinnützigkeit). * cooperative - like for example the Societas cooperativa Europaea - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_cooperativa_Europaea As most of the team-members are from Europe, let us focus for the first idea on European models and exclude the US 501.. foundations, which as @pabloyoyoista tells me are a p.i.a to create and maintain. EDIT: Possible interesting links and information while creating a legal entity: * OCE cannot host our funds as a legal entity, but we could remain in Open Collective: https://docs.opencollective.com/help/independent-collectives/about-independent-collectives * Example bylaws' template from OpenSourceImaging: https://gitlab.com/osiiev/public/-/tree/main/Statute/EN?ref_type=heads * Example invoice management: https://gitlab.com/osiiev/tools/bashev