Toolserver Working Group/Jurisdiction

AT has proposed that we engage a firm of international lawyers to advise us where the ideal jurisdiction should be.

Candidates include:


 * Florida - as it is the jurisdiction of the WMF
 * California - as it is the location of the WMF's office
 * Germany - location of current owner, WMDE
 * Netherlands - location of current servers
 * Switzerland - common location for global HQs
 * New Hampshire - common location for global companies and benefits from having broadly the same libel/copyright laws as the Wikimedia projects
 * England - widely used, low cost and very convenient system of incorporation
 * any other jurisdiction recommended by our lawyers

Criteria include:


 * General legal issues and bureaucracy:
 * time to incorporate
 * cost of constitution
 * bureaucratic burden
 * running costs
 * taxes to be paid by the entity
 * taxes to be paid by the chapters (e.g. VAT-like taxes)
 * possible forms of legal entities (charity ?)
 * Specific legal issues related to our goals
 * compatibility between local law and our goals for the TA.
 * vulnerability to libel laws, given the interactions with Wikipedia
 * copyright laws
 * Constraints linked to the existing setup
 * closeness to NL (where toolserver is physically located) and DE (where governance is currently)
 * May be useful to have a TSA member in the jurisdiction to help set it up
 * flexibility
 * any other things the lawyers think may be particularly relevant