As I think https://sustainoss.org/ is about the same goals, I would like to cross-post this issue: The role of an NPO / Foundation · Issue #59 · sfosc/sfosc · GitHub
As a tangent from the discussion in #5 foundations came up as one way to address governance issues fairly. But they may play other roles as well. Think of:
- Managing non-code assets, trademarks, official releases in a store, domain names, etc.
- Mitigate the bus factor, by being a sort of access keys trustee in case of serious problems.
- Provide infrastructure for projects, like accepting donations (opencollective host?) or hosting tools.
- Try to broker partnerships to create jobs in oss with the right incentives.
- Gather expertise in oss sustainability and share this knowledge as part of the core mission.
- Receive funding for the mission of oss sustainability in and of itself.
A whole array of things it could do come to mind.
The values and principles of this very community might make a good mission statement. It has huge overlap with others out there like Mozilla, The Linux Foundation, CII, FSF, etc. so on the one hand that makes me feel like we’re duplicating effort. On the other hand that could mean it has good potential for partnering.
Before I try and solidify this idea on my own, I would like to see what your thoughts are on this. And I realize this is a pretty open ended issue, so let me start this off with the question:
Do you think SFOSC and/or https://sustainoss.org/ should try and create this? If so, would you get involved? If not, what are your concerns?