Tag Archives: Foundations

Supporting AlmaLinux

We are pleased to be supporting the AlmaLinux OS Foundation as it starts its work as steward of the community around the new AlmaLinux distribution. Meshed’s founder Simon Phipps is joining the newly-incorporated non-profit as a director. In this role he will be building on his experience with many other open source Foundations to ensure that the governance is fair, stable, independent and transparent while also serving the needs of the AlmaLinux user community.

With the unexpected switch of CentOS to become an experimental upstream of RHEL, it was inevitable that candidates would emerge to replace it in its role of an unaffiliated downstream binary-compatible distribution of RHEL. The existence of a reliable downstream distribution is good for everyone, offering a low-friction on-ramp for newcomers and a long-term home for those capable of self-support. It builds the market so that commercial players also benefit from the ever-growing user base in a classic adoption-led model.

So it’s good that the need is being met by a distro anchored in an independent Foundation. AlmaLinux aims to leverage the existing build processes of a contributor company, CloudLinux, to produce a reliable, stable, binary-compatible distribution within the context of a community-administered non-profit Foundation. This US 501(c)(6) will hold all the trademarks, keys and other assets of AlmaLinux on behalf of the community. We’re pleased to be able to help make the initiative succeed. Congratulations on the first release!

Large-Scale Governance – 10 Apache Lessons

Starting a large-scale open source project? The Apache Software Foundation is the benchmark against which you will be measured.

Santa Cruz surfer

We’re now well beyond the point where open source has “won”. We’re seeing the open source idea starting to mature beyond even adolescence into adulthood. As it does so, our understanding and expectations of open source communities need to expand. Continue reading →

Does Open Source Really Need Tax Breaks?

Open source Foundations have a great track record for good governance of open source projects – think of the Apache Software Foundation, the Document Foundation, the Eclipse Foundation or the Mozilla Foundation and the tremendous software they produce speaks volumes. We take it for granted that they need to be tax-exempt organisations.

Yet troubles in the USA with gaining recognition for open source projects from the tax authorities raise an important question: is tax-exempt status really necessary? Or are we mistaking approval of sound accounting principles for certification of good governance?  Today’s article in InfoWorld has more.

 

Options in Place of New Foundations

For the majority of projects a software foundation is not the next step. There are plenty of other options available to developers looking for a way to protect the interests of their project and contributors. Using existing fiduciary hosts and fiduciary and governance hosts allows you to take advantage of proven approaches and experienced stewards. Read more in today’s InfoWorld article.

Thinking Of Starting A Foundation?

Open source projects are increasingly opting to form an independent entity – a “Foundation” – to form the core of their community, rather than relying on goodwill or corporate oversight. Foundations often hold shared assets such as money, trademarks and copyrights, provide infrastructure, and sometimes employ staff.

The idea is seductive, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. A Foundation can’t solve your community problems; it can only make firm the solutions you devise, by providing a canvas on which to paint the trust and governance you have all agreed and to guarantee it for future generations of your community. You need to solve the problems first.

Continue reading →