Flouzo - Community-driven donation campaigns
Using our experience on the Ryzom.org campaign, we want to foster the creation and setup of community-driven online donation campaigns.
Such campaigns have been around for a long time, and numerous examples have proved they can be a good alternative way of financing projects, especially when such projects do not fit the profile business angels or banks want to see.
With Flouzo, we want to create a plateform where anyone with a good idea can setup an online donation campaign. We will provide - under a Free Software license - all the tools that we needed or dreamed of when we had to run such campaigns : certification, payment methods, communication tools, money meter, etc.
And, who knows, perhaps one day we will prove wrong the saying: "money goes to money".
May
25
Project news
Good - we'll (perhaps) avoid going to jail
by Xavier Antoviaque
Second lawyer, then! That time, the meeting was with Me Fulgan, lawyer specialised in business copyright law, and also former T4C player with I had the chance of meeting while I was working at GOA. A lot more serious, friendly than the other one, and he knew what he was talking about. :-)
Even if it was only a preliminary discussion, we were able to conclude that a hosting and service attitude could limit the risks. In a nutshell, we would basically charge for an given amount of money for each campaign, but the money wouldn't go through Flouzo (campaign creators would have to use a Paypal account for example, where the money would directly arrive), sign a real paper contract and verify the identity of the campaign creators.
As this is quite a constraint, the first phase (getting donation pledges without any actual payment) could be launched while the other elements are being sent and validated. It adds some work for the campaign creator, and we'll have to carefully choose the amounts we'll ask for, but at least it's a good way of doing it legally speaking. Now we'll have to prepare nice spreadsheets, to know how much we would need to allow the project to stay afloat financially. And try to get one or two contracts to get some cash to strat things off. So, we aren't quite there yet, but things are moving forward.
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May
12
Project news
Meeting with a lawyer
by Xavier Antoviaque
While Flouzo isn't yet a legal entity, and while we still aren't sure we will do it, I'm already not a "unemployed" person in regards to the local employment agency. I am "creating a company". Wow, but this is just a way to kick me out of unemployment statistics - and using a title to make it look nicer reminds me of some technics used in the MMORPG industry... Anyway, since the beginning of the month, I have the great joy of being able to taste the company creation procedure, and I'm discovering this brave new world made of papers and forms.
To be honest, it's not as bad as it looks. People follow what you do, and you are told what you need to do. There are five meetings at an advising center, in addition to visists to the local government work department to get "advising checks" and the ACRE form, and to lawyers and accountants.
Yesterday, it was a meeting with a lawyer. The advising checks, which allows to see lawyers and accountants for a small price, only let you use a limited list of accredited profesionnals. I wasn't convinced this would be enough for Flouzo, given its unusual nature and legal complexity, but given the small price (12.50€ an hour, instead of 100-300€ an hour), it was worth the try. And as expected, a good number of issues quickly appeared.
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