Re: Hosting under the SFC umbrella

[Bryan Hundven <bryanhundven at gmail dot com>]

Hello list,

On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 4:41 PM, Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr> wrote:
> Hello All!
>
> Some time ago, I asked the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) if they
> would be willing to host the crosstool-NG project. They now have
> answered, and we've been offered membership:
>     https://sourceware.org/ml/crossgcc/2014-04/msg00013.html
>
> For those of you who do not know, SFC is a not-for-profit organisation
> whose goal is the advancement of Free Software. Their website clearly
> explains what they're doing:
>
>     http://sfconservancy.org/
>
>     Software Freedom Conservancy is a not-for-profit organization that
>     helps promote, improve, develop, and defend Free, Libre, and Open
>     Source Software (FLOSS) projects. Conservancy provides a non-profit
>     home and infrastructure for FLOSS projects. This allows FLOSS
>     developers to focus on what they do best â writing and improving
>     FLOSS for the general public â while Conservancy takes care of the
>     projects' needs that do not relate directly to software development
>     and documentation.
>
> There are quite a number of very well-known projects hosted at SFC, of
> which:
>
>     BusyBox, Git, Inkscape, Mercurial, PyPy, Samba, SWIG, uClibc, Wine
>
>
> This offer of membership is just an offer; crosstool-NG is not yet a
> member project of SFC. We must first discuss whether to accept or not
> this offer, and if we accept, under what terms we will join SFC.
>
>
> We now have some questions to answer before we get hosted under the
> SFC's umbrella. All contributors to the crosstool-NG project, whether
> they contributed code and/or documentation, and/or helped on the mailing
> list and/or the IRC channel, as well as users of the crosstool-NG
> project, are encouraged to answer those questions, and participate in
> the discussion.
>
> The SFC proposal comes with a template of an agreement we'd have to
> sign. This template is just that: a template. I propose we use it as a
> basis for our discussions. The template is available there:
>     https://sfconservancy.org/members/apply/ConservancyFSATemplate.pdf
>
>
> ----
>
> First and foremost, do we want the crosstool-NG project to be hosted
> by the SFC, at all?
>
> Before you answer this question, please be sure to review what SFC
> does, and whether that's what you believe the crosstool-NG project
> needs.
>
>
> ----
>
> SFC wants the project to have (in their own words) a Project Leadership
> Committee (PLC). The PLC is in charge of managing the project, serves
> as the interface between the project and SFC, and should be at least
> three persons.
>
> We currently have no such thing as a PLC, so we must create one. I
> suggest we use the terminology of SFC to name this the "Crosstool-NG
> Project Leadership Committee" (CPLC for short.)
>
> As to how to form the CPLC, my preference would go to the second form
> of committee, the "Self-Perpetuating Committee, w/ avoiding employees
> of same company serving together" with three seats. If you have another
> suggestion, do not hesitate to say so.
>
>
> Those interested in joining the CPLC are encouraged to say so. Others
> are encouraged to name those they would like to see serve on the CPLC,
> with either of those statements:
>
>   - to run for a seat on the CPLC, and cast a vote at the same time:
>
>     I, FIRST-NAME LAST-NAME, run for a seat on the CPLC.
>
>   - to nominate someone for the CPLC, and cast a vote for that person:
>
>     I, FIRST-NAME LAST-NAME, nominates FIRST-NAME LAST-NAME as
>     a contender for a seat on the CPLC.
>
> Each voting person can cast at most three votes. A vote is either a
> run for a seat (a vote for oneself), or a nomination (a vote for
> someone else.) If you've been nominated, but would prefer not to serve,
> please say so.
>
> The run is open until 2014-05-31 23:59:59 UTC. Date headers in the
> emails will be observed to check the date limit has been respected.
> The only exception will be to let people who did not explicitly run
> for a seat but were nominated by others, refuse this nomination.
>
> The three contenders that get the more votes by that time will get
> to serve on the CPLC. If there is a tie between one or more contenders
> by that time, I, as the current "Benevolent Dictator By Default",
> will cast as many arbitrary votes as necessary to break the tie, but
> only to break the tie. If there is less than three contenders by that
> time, I will privately contact some contributors to ask them them if
> they will be willing to join the CPLC, and will publish the results to
> the list when the CPLC is complete. If it is not possible to get three
> persons seating at the CPLC, we'll see with SFC what can be done to
> resolve the situation.
>
>
> As a side matter, we will have to define what the role of the CPLC is.
> I suggest we put this aside for now, by simply stating the following:
>
>     The "Crosstool-NG Project Leadership Committee" (CPLC) will take
>     any action to further the advancement of crosstool-NG, in
>     accordance to the agreement signed with SFC.
>
> We can refine this definition later, in the course of the application.
> SFC will most probably be able to help draft a proper definition.
>
>
> ----
>
> SFC acts as a Fiscal Sponsor to the projects they host. What this means,
> is that they are able to receive monetary donations to the project,
> which the project can then spend for its activities (minus a percentage
> kept by SFC for their own expenses at shepherding the project, which in
> their proposal amounts to 10% of donations.)
>
> The project so far was not able to receive donations, and I refused a
> few offers over the years, because I did not want to conflate that with
> my own money at the bank.
>
> Currently, the crosstool-NG project has only one reason to spend money,
> that is registering the two domain names, which I have so far paid with
> my own money: crosstool-ng.org and crosstool-ng.net.
>
> The server is a VM which Oregon State University - Open Source Lab
> (OUSOSL, http://osuosl.org/ ) is hosting at no charge. OSUOSL is also a
> non-profit organisation (an IRS 501(c)(3) ) like SFC. I believe it is
> possible for a 501(c)(3) to transfer money to another 501(c)(3). If so,
> then SFC would be able to donate to OSUOSL a part of the donations the
> crosstool-NG project would receive.
>
> It will be the responsibility of the CPLC to eventually decide what to
> do with the donations, the above being only a suggestion.
>
>
> ----
>
> Assets held by the project, that can be transferred to SFC.
>
>   - domain names: the only assets so far are the domain names. They are
>     currently registered until 2017-01-28. Should we join SFC, I will
>     happily arrange to transfer the domain names to SFC.
>
>   - copyright assignment: SFC does not require that a project assigns
>     copyright to SFC for a project to join. I believe this should not
>     be done for the crosstool-NG project, as I firmly believe that
>     multiple copyright holders is better than a single copyright holder.
>     Should some contributors prefer to assign their copyright to SFC,
>     we'll see with SFC if it is possible to have a mixed solution, with
>     some contributors actually assigning their copyright to SFC, while
>     others retain their copyright.
>
>
> ----
>
> Please, be sure to read all of this, plus the template agreement pointed
> to, above. Feel free to ask any question, voice your suggestions, add
> any point you think important, and discuss all of this: the above is not
> final words, and must be discussed. Please keep all communications
> public on the list.
>
> Thank you again all for all your contributions!
> Thank you SFC for your offer!
>
> Regards,
> Yann E. MORIN.
>
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A while back Yann sent this message out, and two people were nominated
for CPLC, Yann and myself.

For us to move forward with the SFC, we need at least one more person
to step up to be on the CPLC. And if we have more then three, there is
no problem with that, the more the merrier!

Thanks for you time!

-Bryan

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