On Thu, Oct 14, 2021 at 12:23 PM Gregory Nutt <spudan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >> .... The Linux Foundation and the ASF are both not-for-profit > >> organizations, but they different significantly in their legal > >> organizations. I forget the non-project corporation types but > >> basically, the Linux Foundation is dedicated to free business > >> development. Projects are controlled through management teams > >> composed of businesses, usually by paying a fee and getting power > >> within the project based upon the amount that the business paid > >> (Silver, Gold, Platinum levels for example). > >> > >> The ASF is a different kind of not-for-profit organization, it is > >> dedicated to the people who use the software project, not to > >> businesses. So for the ASF it is the user community that matters, > >> not the businesses that use the software. An ASF project is > >> controlled by individuals in the community that have made significant > >> contributions to the project. You will often hear ASF people say > >> "Community over code." (I personally like code more that people, but > >> that is just me). > > > > Here is the missing details: > > > > Linux Foundation is an IRS 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization and the > > Apache Software Foundation is an IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit > > organization. According to > > https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=1559: > > > > * 501(c)(3): Religious, Educational, Charitable, Scientific, > > Literary, Testing for Public Safety, to Foster National or > > International Amateur Sports Competition, or Prevention of Cruelty > > to Children or Animals Organizations > > * 501(c)(6): Business Leagues, Chambers of Commerce, Real Estate > > Boards, etc. > > > > Basically community first vs. business first. > > > One more anecdote then I promise to STFU > > As most of you know, Xiaomi sponsored and advocated NuttX to join the > ASF. Xiaomi have been great partners and, despite my leeriness of > businesses, it has been a pleasure working with them. > > But a couple of years prior to that, Samsung sponsored NuttX in a > similar way to join the Linux Foundation. After a few weeks of > discussions, I realized that what Samsung was advocating was not in the > interests of the project but served only Samsung and I discontinued that > conversation. One good thing that came from that was a clarification of > my values and what values are necessary to retain in the project in > order for me to relinquish control of it to others. I summarized all of > those things in the top-level INVIOLABLES.md which is essential the > "contract" under which I gave the project away. Most of the items in > that list are things that Samsung wanted to change: They did not want > to follow the standard POSIX/Unix OS interface, they wanted to change > the coding style, they only wanted to support ARM with GCC under Linux, > they wanted to rebrand the project to use a Samsung marketing name, .. > > That all makes sense if you understand the fundamental differences > between the Linux Foundation and the ASF. > > They could fork the code and do with the fork whatever they'd like provided they respect the license, but I certainly hope that (original) NuttX always remains POSIX-like/Unix-like, with support for multiple architectures, multiple compilers, ... These features are among the biggest reasons I've adopted NuttX. Getting rid of them would defeat the whole purpose! Cheers, Nathan
