Software Freedom Conservancy: Non-Profit Infrastructure For FLOSS

Bradley M. Kuhn

Thursday 27 October 2011

Why Did People Write Free Software?

• Consider GNU project.

• Founded on idealism.

• Recruited volunteers.

• Paid non-profit staff.

• Those projects remain community-oriented.

The Danger of Our Success

• Open Source is a corporate fad now.

• VC’s use Open Source manipulatively
  • proprietary relicensing
  • proprietary add-ons
• Companies employ developers …
  • … maybe to work on Free Software.
  • … but companies control employee’s time in their interest.

Where Things Are Heading

• FLOSS slowly goes toward for-profit corporate interest.

• Or, it’s purely thrown over the wall.
  • At corporate whim
  • cf: Android delayed release

• Project decisions are made by companies.

Software Freedom Governance?

• Corporate sponsorship are common.

• For-profit control of projects can be dangerous.

• Fedora vs. Ubuntu
  • loss leader products to upsell RHEL, etc.

Danger of For-Profits

• For-profits act in interest in shareholders.

• Those who care most about software are usually not shareholders.

• Interests only align sometimes with community.

Non-Profits are Different

• USA 501(c)(3) non-profits act in interest of the public good.
  • similar to: Stichting in Netherlands or 1901 non-profit association in France

• Software freedom is best when in public good.

• Non-profit orgs (NPOs) are best place for software freedom.

What Can USA NPOs Do?

• Collect (USA-tax-deductible) donations for a project.
  • both individual and corporate.

• Distribute that money to advance project (and public good).

• Make sure project isn’t controlled by for-profit interests.

• Help leadership with non-technical decisions.

• Neutral ground when corporations sponsor.

Organization Proliferation

• Too many NPOs will confuse donors.

• Need a board of directors, incorporation, meetings, IRS filings.

• Hackers end up doing work they hate.

• Less Free Software gets written.

Aggregating Under Umbrella

• Conservancy is designed as one organization.

• Composed of many different projects.

• Each has its own funds.

• One board of directors, one non-technical governance structure.

Funding Through Conservancy

• Travel to conferences.

• Handling Google SoC and other philanthropy programs.

• Conference invoicing and contracts.

• Stipends and paid development contracts for developers.

• Fiscal oversight.

How to Join?

• Looking for established projects.

• Relatively informal process.

• Email info@sfconservancy.org

• 6–8 month signup lead time.

More Info and This Talk’s License

• URLs / Social Networking / Email:
  • Conservancy: sfconservancy.org & @conservancy
  • Me: ebb.org/bkuhn & @bkuhn (identi.ca only)
  • FSF Licensing Site: fsf.org/licensing
  • Report GPL violations: <compliance@sfconservancy.org>
  • Slides at: ebb.org/bkuhn/talks & gitorious.org/bkuhn/talks (source)

Copyright © 2010, 2011 Bradley M. Kuhn.
These slides, this talk, and audio/video recordings thereof are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.