RE: Henry Luce Foundation Grant to Unicode in Support of Encoding Tangut

Hey, Michel, let me correct the history here. The Unicode Consortium was
originally incorporated as a 501 c (6) not-for-profit. In 2012, we
converted to a 501 c (3) not-for-profit. The conversion was approved in
2013, but the IRS counted the date of filing as the conversion date. The
substantive difference is, as you say, that donors in the US may
potentially find their contributions tax-deductible.

Lisa
with my Unicode CFO hat






From:
Michel Suignard <michel_at_suignard.com>
To:
"verdy_p_at_wanadoo.fr" <verdy_p_at_wanadoo.fr>,
Cc:
unicode Unicode Discussion <unicode_at_unicode.org>
Date:
09/16/2013 03:38 PM
Subject:
RE: Henry Luce Foundation Grant to Unicode in Support of Encoding Tangut
Sent by:
unicode-bounce_at_unicode.org



Sorry to say but a lot of nonsense in your message.
For status of the Unicode Consortium please refer to
http://www.unicode.org/consortium/consort.html
 
Unicode has always been a member based nonprofit organization and was
always welcoming grants of any sort to help its work. Many experts and
members have benefited from various organization to facilitate specific
encoding work, just look at the encoding proposals that have been posted
for decades to see examples.
Tangut is just another example of a targeted grant among dozens. Most of
us are volunteering in large part to get this work done.
 
The only recent change was to go from a 501-c2 to a 501-c3 organization
which allows donating organizations to have additional tax benefit under
US tax laws (usual disclaimer about not being a tax advice). That’s all.
It may make easier for some US based constituency to donate to the
consortium.
 
Again refer to the page linked above and stop speculating on what the
consortium does. There is no change on its mode of operation. It is still
member based and members have the final say (either directly or indirectly
through the board and the officers) on all decisions made by the
consortium. Tangut encoding has been languishing for years, partially for
logistic issues having to do with the fact that Tangut experts are spread
all over the world. I welcome any initiative that get Tangut from the void
its encoding proposal has been in for years.
 
Michel
(wearing the Unicode Consortium Secretary hat)
 
 
From: unicode-bounce_at_unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce_at_unicode.org] On
Behalf Of Philippe Verdy
Sent: Monday, September 16, 2013 1:16 PM
To: unicode Unicode Discussion
Subject: Re: Henry Luce Foundation Grant to Unicode in Support of Encoding
Tangut
 
Is the Unicode Consortium allowed to receive dedicated grants like a
public foundation under US law ?
 
And if so, how does this conform with the UTC working policies ? I suppose
that the Henry Luce Foundation (HLF) will monitor the progresses (to
provide payments) but will it influence the agenda and mean that the
Tangut encoding will be accelerated, using inputs whose sources will come
from only from this Foundation or the UCB SEI ? Can this acceleration be
compatible with ISO WG2 agenda and other national interests ?
 
So why the HLF did not simply join the UTC with normal membership to
participate directly in the encoding process but without more rights to
fix the working agenda ? Is this a new kind (of UTC membership (and more
powerful, even if it does not include vote rights...) ?
 
The recent announcement causes some questions. because this changes the
current practices. The Unicode Consortium for now is still registered as a
commercial organization which can then only deliver some limited services
in exachange of a payment (such services include membership fees, sales of
publications, training programs, participations to live events, and so
on...)
 
But this may be a sign that the Unicode Consortium is about to have its
own status changed to become a non-profit charity foundation dedicated to
wordlwide promotion of education and culture. Thanks. But this should be
clear, and some status will have to be changed to be compatible with US
law about non-profit charities.
 
We've seen another sign of such evolution by Unicode opening its
repository of working documents. But the main evolutions would include
more open membership conditions, and non discrimination between members.
It would change radically the working methods. Or may be it is just the
UTC that will become a foundation, founded by grants from the Consortium
and for other organizations.
 
The recent announcement is then very intrigating about how the Consortium
will work for the future, it's probably unavoidable that it will become a
foundation, when almost all commercial needs have been solved and most
remaining issues are about either:
 
- rare scripts or historic script (whose usage will likely never reach a
point of commercial profitability)
 
- complex text-handling algorithms based on heuristics which have many
exceptions and many competing algorothms for various uses, so that they
will become standards with lots of difficulties or the winning standard or
some algorithms will not come from Unicode but from other working groups
(commercial or collaborative open-sourced).
 
Do we expect then 'The Unicode Consoritum, Inc." to be dissolved later and
replaced by "The Unicode Foundation" which could emerge soon, first in
parallel to the Consortium (and possibly grouping the efforts currently
made in the CLDR TC, the UTC, the BSD SEI, and other cultural foundations
including the Wikimedia Foundation, or Unesco and similar international
agencies) ? Will that help receive dedicated public grants from government
sources or from the general public (with possible tax deduction) ? And how
will the current policies be enforced (notably stability policies) ?
 
 
2013/9/16 Philippe Verdy <verdy_p_at_wanadoo.fr>
Is the Unicode Consortium allowed to receive dedicated grants like a
public foundation under US law ?
 
And if so, how does this conform with the UTC working policies ? I suppose
that the Henry Luce Foundation (HLF) will monitor the progresses (to
provide payments) but will it influence the agenda and mean that the
Tangut encoding will be accelerated, using inputs whose sources will come
from only from this Foundation or the UCB SEI ? Can this acceleration be
compatible with ISO WG2 agenda and other national interests ?
 
So why the HLF did not simply join the UTC with normal membership to
participate directly in the encoding process but without more rights to
fix the working agenda ? Is this a new kind (of UTC membership (and more
powerful, even if it does not include vote rights...) ?
 
 
2013/9/16 <announcements_at_unicode.org>
 
The Consortium is very pleased to announce the generous grant made by the
Henry Luce Foundation to support progress on encoding Tangut. The Luce
Foundation has made a one-time grant to the Unicode Consortium to support
a December 2013 meeting to further progress the Tangut script for its
eventual incorporation into the Unicode Standard and the associated
ISO/IEC 10646 International Standard. The meeting will bring together
scholars of Tangut and experts in the character encoding process to agree
on the character repertoire for this large and complex script. Work on
this grant is directed by Dr. Deborah Anderson, Technical Director of the
Consortium and the Project Leader of the UC Berkeley's Script Encoding
Initiative.

http://unicode-inc.blogspot.com/2013/09/henry-luce-foundation-grant-to-unicode.html
 
 


Received on Mon Sep 16 2013 - 18:14:21 CDT