Hi Bradley, I want to thank you for your kind words and expert advice. You make excellent points that we need to carefully consider if the decision is made to put FOSSology under a foundation. To take a step backward, I suspect a question for some of our users and developers is why we might want to do this in the first place. Rather than risk introducing bias in a summary, I’d like to refer folks to a couple of articles. Please feel free to add to this list:
Ian Skerrett on "When to move a project to an open source foundation?" https://ianskerrett.wordpress.com/2013/07/30/when-to-move-a-project-to-an-open-source-foundation/ Martin Michlmayr on “Non-profits, foundations, and umbrella organizations" http://lwn.net/Articles/561336/ When I first brought up this issue several months ago, a few of you had opinions. Since so much time has elapsed I would appreciate it if you would voice your opinion again. The problems I am trying to solve are: 1) need for build/testing servers 2) ownership of assets (domain name, FOSSology name) 3) clarity that FOSSology is free software and not exclusionary 4) ability to accept donations (seems like a good idea, but not thought out) 5) possible help with outreach Thanks, Bob Gobeille b...@fossology.org All opinions are mine alone and are not influenced by my employer > On Apr 30, 2015, at 9:12 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn <bk...@sfconservancy.org> wrote: > > Bob, > > First of all, let me thank you for your years of dedication to the > FOSSology project and in particular ... > > Robert Gobeille wrote at 13:10 (PDT) on Wednesday: >> Since HP is “deinvesting” in FOSSology, meaning that HP is to stop >> funding us to work on it, my job (HP pays me to be the project leader) >> is going to go away. > > ... I want to express my sadness that HP has eliminated your position. > Of course, the wonderful thing about Free Software projects, > particularly those under the GPL, is that they can have a new life after > their primary sponsor moves on. As an employee of an organization that > uses FOSSology regularly, I hope very much that FOSSology survives and > finds a home that seeks to help FOSSology to thrive in the long term. > > First of all, I strongly encourage public discussion about the benefits > and disadvantages to any non-profit home. In my nearly 20 years of > experience in helping Free Software projects find non-profit homes, I > find that such public discussion not only serves as an excellent record > of why the project chose one non-profit home over another, but also can > help other projects who later face the same decision. > > I realize Bob specifically asked about infrastructural resources, and I > give "Conservancy's answer" on that at the bottom of this email. > However, I would suggest the FOSSology community consider these other > issues I list as points below, and I hope they're helpful. If not -- > just skip down to the bottom where I answer Bob's specific questions. ;) > > * Not all non-profits have the same type of mission. If you're > considering exclusively USA Open Source and Free Software > organizations, there are roughly two types of possible homes: a trade > association or a charity. A trade association serves a common > business interest of its member companies (who are for-profit > businesses, typically), while a charity serves the needs of the > general public. This is a huge cultural difference and will set the > tone for your project as either primarily > for-profit-business-oriented or community-oriented. > > * The size of the non-profit you join matters a great deal. While a > smaller non-profit might have fewer resources to put forward in the > short term to the project, a smaller non-profit can typically > "weather storms" better with the project, since a small non-profit is > quite adept at doing more with fewer resources. The question to ask > is whether FOSSology expects to grow quickly and have tons of > finanical sponsorship, conferences (etc.) quickly. A large > non-profit might be a better choice if such is expected to happen > right away, as a large non-profit can ramp up faster. > > * Carefully review the agreements that the project would engage in to > join the non-profit, and be sure you understand what the non-profit > will and won't do for the project, how much of the funds' raised go > specifically to the project, and how decision-making is handled > between the non-profit and the project leadership. Conservancy's > agreement templates, as well as FAQs about these issues, are publicly > available here: https://sfconservancy.org/members/apply/ > > * Consider the fundraising goals of the project. Some non-profits > might not be willing to assist with grass-roots and "small time" > fundraising, while others typically focus on that. Depending on what > annual budget you'd like to set for the project (and realistically > believe you can raise,) you might chose one non-profit over another. > > For example, most Conservancy projects have about $5k-$30k/year in > financial throughput, which is primarily spent for developer travel > (Page 11 of > https://sfconservancy.org/docs/conservancy_independent-audit_fy-2013.pdf > gives a good overview of this). Conservancy has found that most > projects -- even very large and important ones like Git and Samba -- > simply don't need more revenue than that, since their developers are > either volunteers, or are funded by their employers to contribute to > the project. > > If the project does want to raise enough to fund developers directly, > almost any Open Source or Free Software non-profit (Conservancy > included) has experience doing that. Then, the question becomes how > such arrangements are structured, and how to design reporting > structures for the funded parties such that both the goals of the > project and the non-profit are met. In my experience, such > consideration generates lots of questions and discussion. If hiring > developers is on your roadmap, explore these questions in depth with > the non-profit before joining. > > Now, to Bob's question: > > Robert Gobeille wrote at 11:55 (PDT): >> What the project needs is: > >> 1) A public FOSSology instance (if Matt at UNO wants to move this off >> their server). >> 2) A package build/test infrastructure. We build packages for >> several distros and distro versions, and currently use VM’s at HP to >> test them. >> 3) A test instance that is fairly large to identify performance >> problems at scale. Our current test machine has a 154 GB database >> and a repository that is almost 2TB. > > You've listed a number of infrastructural needs of the project. In my > experience (and unlike non-software development initiatives) software > developers tend to prefer a good degree of control over their > infrastructure. Conservancy has therefore focused on providing as much > VPS "power" to our projects at no charge as we can, by negotiating > agreements with many different VPS hosters, including Rackspace, Gandi, > and OSUOSL (which you mentioned), to give gratis services to our > projects. Conservancy focuses on getting raw computer power donations > for our projects, as they usually know best how to use it. While > nothing is long-term guaranteed, I suspect that given that nearly half > of Conservancy's projects rely on donated VPS hosting, Conservancy will > continue to find more VPS hosters and ensure such donations are > consistently available to its projects. > > Thus, ultimately, the difficult issue in my experience is not CPU cycles > or virtual instances, but maintaining the development infrastructure > that runs on those boxes. This takes sysadmin work, and often projects > simply find volunteers, and/or raise money to pay someone to do that > work. Thus, if FOSSology *can* extract a contractual assurance of > guaranteed sysadmin staff time devoted to the project from its > non-profit home, then that non-profit may be the best choice (if these > infrastructure needs listed above are indeed the top priority). > > However, I'm not aware of any non-profit that offers this, other than > Apache Software Foundation (from which FOSSology is disqualified due to > its license). Ironically, one of the reasons that Conservancy *didn't* > design hosting infrastructure (such as the items you mention above) as > part of its extensive service plan (which is listed at > https://sfconservancy.org/members/services/ ) was due to the fact that > more commonly, developers on ASF projects were complaining that the ASF > infrastructure wasn't in the form the project wanted. (Cf: the "why > can't I host my Apache project on Github?" arguments of a few years ago.) > > ASF's more recent relaxing of their infrastructure requirements on their > projects indicates to me that Conservancy made the right choice. I don't > think I could identify two Conservancy projects that have the exact same > infrastructure setup, so imposing a specific one would have attempted to > put many various non-round pegs all in round holes. > > > Meanwhile, I suspect the issue of infrastructure concerns may simply be > culture shock of the existing changes for the project. FOSSology has > been cared for well by a for-profit company with substantial resources > for a long time, and that era is now ending. No matter what happens to > FOSSology next, the project will have to figure out how to survive with > substantially fewer resources. I'd encourage you to pick a home that > can help you do that, as I suspect it's impossible at this point to find > a home that's prepared to dedicate long-term financial resources. > > For Conservancy's part, we can offer FOSSology on this front what we > offer all our new member projects: access to the most experienced > non-profit staff in the community to help you figure out how to raise as > much money as you can for the project, and their advice on how to make > best use of whatever resources can be collected through charitable > contributions. I'd suspect that's just what FOSSology could use right > now, but ultimately the project should settle into the home that's the > best fit for your needs. I hope my lengthy email above has fully shared > my expertise on the subject to assist the FOSSology community in making > the right decision. > > Finally, I should note: > > Robert Gobeille wrote at 08:52 (PDT): >> the Software Freedom Conservancy [has] expressed a willingness to >> accept FOSSology. > > Conservancy's staff is very interested in FOSSology (since we're users > and fans of the project), but FOSSology would still have to go through > Conservancy's standard application process. However, Conservancy's > Evaluation Committee meets monthly, and thus once the FOSSology > community decides to apply to Conservancy officially, a final decision > from Conservancy would likely be forthcoming in a month or less. > -- > Bradley M. Kuhn > President & Distinguished Technologist of Software Freedom Conservancy > _______________________________________________ > fossology mailing list > fossology@lists.fossology.org > http://lists.fossology.org/mailman/listinfo/fossology _______________________________________________ fossology mailing list fossology@lists.fossology.org http://lists.fossology.org/mailman/listinfo/fossology
