This page documents how ICTL satisfies the criteria to be a Debian Trusted Organization
this page is under construction and its contents need to be verified
0. Introduction
INSTITUTO PARA CONSERVAÇÃO DE TECNOLOGIAS LIVRES a.k.a ICTL is a Brazilian non-profit association, founded during the organization of DebConf19 in 2019. The idea to form an entity was already being discussed before Curitiba was picked for DebConf19, but the actual need for an entity at that time urged us to bite the bullet and just do it. ICTL plans to work as fiscal sponsor for free software projects in Brazil, as well as developing its own free software advocacy and development activities.
English website: https://ictl.org.br/en/
1. The organization should share Debian's general visions
ICTL bylaws, not only do not conflict with the Debian Social contract, they are in direct agreement with it:
- Fostering the use and development of Free Software and Hardware;
- Supporting and publicizing Free Software and Hardware projects;
- Supporting digital inclusion projects that use Free Software;
- Producing free software-related events, courses, and campaigns and other activities, of technical, philosophical, social or educational nature;
- Producing fee software-related printed, digital and multimedia material, and supporting such production made by third parties;
- Producing free software-related clothing, accessories and souvenirs;
- Incentivizing the adoption of free software by governments at the city, state and federal level;
- Supporting other national and international institutions that also have similar free software-related objectives.
2. The organization should remain loyal to Debian
From the 11 founding members, 7 are Debian contributors (5 DDs and 2 non-DDs), including the president and treasurer. The remaining members are from the wider free software community. The policies for member projects are not explicit set yet, but they will contain a provision that all expenses must be approved by a project representative, and in the case of Debian that will be the DPL.
The website source code is maintained in salsa.
3. The organization should provide accountability on assets held in trust
We will use ledger to track incomes, expenses, and assets. Member projects will have access to the live data.
4. The organization should be reliable, sustainable, and reactive
As mentioned above, 7 out of the 11 members are Debian contributors, 5 them being DDs. The email alias to be contacted for financial matters is read by at least two people.
5. The organization should provide a reasonable financial framework
- Non-profit associations in Brazil are tax-exempt for income that is target at activities related to their social objectives and fields of activity.
- There are no restrictions on what kind of expenses can be made
There are no a priori restrictions on transfer of assets to other TOs
- Since the ICTL incorporation is too recent, donations and sponsorship are not yet tax-deductible. That requires at least 2 years of incorporation, and we plan to apply for that as soon as it is possible.
6. Additional opportunities
One thing that our local Debian community already did was produce and sell Debian merchandise, and that will continue under the ITCL banner, and the proceedings will be reverted for Debian. That was already the case before, but was done informally by using the proceedings to cover expense of Debian and free software events.
7. Parameters
- Jurisdiction: Brazil
- ISO Country Code: BR
- Accounting currency: BRL
- Financial year end: 31 December
Legal regime, link to Wikipedia article or government site: Associação (Portuguese wikipedia), Voluntary Association (English wikipedia)
- Registration number(s): CNPJ (Brazilian Registry of Legal Entities) 31.619.991/0001-19
- Official body where public filings can be accessed: N/A
- Name of accounting software: ledger
8. Benefits for Debian
- ICTL will be able to receive money donations in BRL and keep it a bank account.
- ICTL will be able to receive hardware donations.
The money can be used to reimburse people in Brazil in BRL, for instance flight tickets for ?DebConfs or ?MiniDebConfs.
Buy hardware to be used for Debian Community, for instance hardware to streaming MiniDebConf activities.