Hi, I wanted to ask the community's thoughts on submitting a proposal for Trac to become a member of the Software Freedom Conservancy. [0]
After hearing WANdisco's concerns about sponsoring code contributions without a foundation's guarantees, and Christian's hesitations about changing Trac's established ways in order to become an Apache project, I started to research other open source foundations like the Apache Foundation. I wanted to see if any reputable foundation existed that could hold Trac's copyright without imposing any changes on Trac's existing license, development infrastructure, and governance. Of the foundations I researched (which also included the Apache Foundation, the Eclipse Foundation, and the Free Software Foundation) -- the Software Freedom Conservancy looks most promising for Trac: - I believe the SFC would accept Trac's existing 3-Clause BSD License without modifications. [1] - I believe the SFC would accept Trac's existing informal governance structure and procedures without modifications. [2] - I believe the SFC would accept Trac's existing development practices (occurring in the Edgewall Subversion repository with issues tracked in the Edgewall Trac Trac) without modifications. [3] - Entering into a relationship with the SFC would not need to be permanent. The Trac project would be free to leave the SFC in the future. [4] - The SFC does seem to be very reputable. Its current Member Projects include very prominent project, for example Git, Mercurial, PyPy, Inkscape, jQuery, Selenium, Twisted, and Wine. [5] And its Board of Directors includes Bradley Kuhn[6] (formerly of the Free Software Foundation) and Stormy Peters[7], Head of Developer Engagement at Mozilla. [8] - The SFC would also be able to accept and distribute donations earmarked for Trac development which would be tax-deductible in the United States. [9] It also seems to do some fundraising support on behalf of its member projects if they are interested. [10] So, I wanted to see what people thought about the idea. Applications for new projects are accepted twice per year. The next application deadline is February 1. Importantly, *submitting an application does not imply any obligation to accept membership if it is offered*: the SFC FAQ says "Don't worry about “wasting our time” [...] If membership in Conservancy is currently a legitimate consideration for your project, we encourage you to apply. We'd rather that you apply and turn down an offer for membership than fail to apply and have to wait until the next application round when you're sure." [11] The canonical Application Form is not published officially, but it is not secret either, and member projects have published theirs. Here is an example: [12] Before agreeing to join the SFC, I imagine it would be best to be sure of a few things -- including how Trac's core developers and "core developers emeritus" felt about it; how the broader Trac community felt about it; whether Trac's membership in the SFC would make WANdisco's executives more comfortable with the idea of sponsoring code contributions; and whether the Apache Foundation's formal guidelines and informal procedures would allow for a healthy relationship between Apache Bloodhound and an upstream BSD-licensed Trac sponsored by the SFC. Also of course we should make sure that my above statements (that SFC membership would not change Trac's license, governance or infrastructures) are correct. I'd be happy to take the lead on communicating and researching any or all (or none) of these questions. For now, since the next application deadline is February 1 -- and because that application would be non-binding -- I thought it was worthwhile to hear people's thoughts on this ASAP, and also to offer to (try to) put together an application in time for the deadline. I would be happy to do the work to collect and write up the necessary information and submit an application (with the core developers' review of course) on behalf of the Trac team and community. Let me know what you think. Thanks, and happy New Year, Ethan [0] http://sfconservancy.org/overview/ [1] "All software of the project should be licensed under a license that is listed both as a Free Software license by the Free Software Foundation and as an Open Source license by the Open Source Initiative. All software documentation for the project should be licensed under a license on the preceding lists, or under Creative Commons' CC-By-SA or CC-By or CC-0." http://sfconservancy.org/members/apply/ -- under "What are the key criteria our project must meet to join?" [2] "Substantively, member projects continue to operate in the same way as they did before joining the Conservancy. So long as the project remains devoted to software freedom and operates consistently with the Conservancy's tax-exempt status, the Conservancy does not intervene in the project's development other than to provide administrative assistance. For example, the Conservancy keeps and maintains books and records for the project and assists with the logistics of receiving donations, but does not involve itself with technical or artistic decision making. Projects are asked, however, to keep the Conservancy up to date on their activities." http://sfconservancy.org/members/apply/ -- under "If my project joins the Conservancy, how will it change?" [3] "Conservancy always avoids making any technical recommendations. [...] Conservancy, for its part, doesn't have a recommended version control system, nor a recommended hosting site, nor anything else like that." http://sfconservancy.org/blog/2011/nov/28/what-npo-for/ [4] "All agreements between member projects and the Conservancy stipulate clearly that the member project can leave the Conservancy with a few months' notice. Federal tax exemption law, though, states that projects must transfer their assets from the Conservancy in a way that is consistent with the Conservancy's not-for-profit tax status — meaning the assets cannot be transferred to an individual or a for-profit entity. Generally, a project would either find another fiscal sponsor or form their own independent tax-exempt non-profit." http://sfconservancy.org/members/apply/ [5] http://sfconservancy.org/members/current/ [6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Kuhn [7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormy_Peters [8] http://sfconservancy.org/about/board/ [9] http://sfconservancy.org/members/services/ -- under "Tax-Deductible, Earmarked Donations" [10] http://sfconservancy.org/news/2011/nov/11/support/ [11] http://sfconservancy.org/members/apply/ -- under "Is our project required to accept membership if offered?" [12] http://wiki.openqa.org/display/WTR/Joining+the+Software+Freedom+Conservancy -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Trac Development" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/trac-dev?hl=en.
