[UK-TUG] Draft motions for dissolution special general meeting (SGM)

[Dr Nicola L C Talbot]

On 04/10/2021 12:56, Jonathan Fine wrote:
> I see no constitutional problem in providing funds to LMS (or even Oxfam) for the purpose of LaTeX training, provided the recipient was genuinely willing to accept them for that purpose.

Given that the UK-TUG training days stopped due to lack of demand, I 
can't see any benefit in providing funds to non-TeX organisations for 
the purpose of LaTeX training. (Would this just be for training their 
own members or would it be more generally applicable to learners who 
aren't interested in the organisation's primary objective? How long will 
the organisation have to sit on surplus funds until they finally run 
enough training days to use it all up? There's no provision for an upper 
cap on the reasonable amount required for the TeX-related purpose in 
Jonathan's proportional proposal.)

The situation over the past year has made training days less feasible 
than they were before. (For the record, the last mention of training 
days that I can find on this mailing list was in 2016 
https://tug.org/pipermail/uktug-announce/2016q4/000198.html)

The Learn LaTeX project evolved from the UK-TUG training days. This fits 
in better with the current trend towards remote working.

I don't want to digress too much onto training days, which was just an 
example of a potential recipient. The particular topic under discussion 
is the draft motion for proportional allocation of UK-TUG funds in the 
event of UK-TUG's dissolution.

I'm strongly against Jonathan Fine's proposal as it provides a means to 
send TeX funds to an organisation that doesn't have TeX as its primary 
objective and will only benefit a subset of TeX users, and this would be 
achieved regardless of the views of the majority of UK-TUG members 
(since all it requires is for one member to vote for it and the 
committee to allow it).

Personally, I'd like to see UK-TUG funds (if UK-TUG dissolves) go to an 
organisation that directly benefits the majority of TeX users.

As a developer, I rely on CTAN to distribute the packages and 
TeX-related applications that I create. As a TeX user, I rely on CTAN to 
make the packages and applications that I need available to the TeX 
distribution that I use. As far as I can gather, CTAN consists of a 
small team of volunteers and a sizeable server (or servers) that has to 
support a high demand (and has recently been hit by a spambot attack). 
Maintaining and protecting the integrity of servers isn't cheap.

I would far rather TeX funds went to CTAN, which we all rely on, than 
have it go to some vague training fund or similar, without any idea of 
the potential demand for it. I'm also happy for TeX funds to go to TUG, 
since they actively support the development of TeX projects. Therefore I 
support the original Motion 7 from the 2019 AGM, which was passed 
subject to the dissolution of UK-TUG.

Regards
Nicola Talbot