Working together and gaining trust

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi Bradley, Hi Jeff,

On Fri, Feb 13, 2026 at 06:43:18PM -0800, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
> Jeffrey Law wrote earlier today:
> > I think we're still missing a key point.  Namely that from a
> > fundraising standpoint there are companies out there that are not
> > willing to channel money to Red Hat to run sourceware, nor are
> > they willing to fund via the FSF.   As soon as you bring in Red
> > Hat or the FSF you cut off those sources of funding.  They are
> > willing to fund infrastructure (via the CTI) outside the Red Hat
> > and FSF organizations.
> 
> Could you please name the specific organization(s) that would make a
> substantial ( ≥ $10k) contribution to fund Sourceware and/or
> infrastructure for glibc that would be unwilling to give such funds
> to all of the following organizations: { Red Hat, FSF, FSF Europe,
> Software Freedom Conservancy }
> 
> It would surprise me that such a donor exists — particularly given
> that they could earmark these donations specifically to support
> Sourceware infrastructure, or even Sourceware infrastructure
> specifically for glibc.

I think you are both right. Just talking about different subsets of
organizations and timeframes.

Five years ago, when Jeff was still at Red Hat, we were genuinely
worried about the specific relationship of the FSF and Red Hat
[1]. And multiple other organizations (not just corporations) made
similar statements about the FSF back then. At the same time it was
kind of silly to have just Red Hat fund the infrastructure especially
since it was mostly community run and hosted projects beyond the GNU
Toolchain, some of which Red Hat no longer had a financial interest
in. So the question became how do we do infrastructure in a way that
we can get funding to it, isnt the sole responsibility of the FSF or
Red Hat, and do it in a way that respects the community and the Free
Software ideals. Which is when the process of looking for a good home
for Sourceware started where everybody, not just Red Hat and/or the
FSF could contribute [2].

Now, five years later, after lots of discussions on the mailinglists,
at conferences like Cauldron and Fosdem, joining the SFC as member
project and with the formation of a Sourceware Project Leadership
Committee I think we have achieved that. Now all the organizations
that Bradley names can and do work together. And we have shown that
infrastructure can be funded by a combination of grants, corporate
sponsorship and community donations.

> But, if there is an example of such an organization, we should make
> it publicly known.  And we should ask these organizations why they
> have blackballed such a large swath of FOSS organizations, and they
> should answer this publicly — in the spirit or transparency and
> software freedom.

I think it is more subtle than that. And also works the other way
around. For example I talked to potential corporate sponsors that
didn't like they would needed to become LF members before being
allowed to donate money. But there are also corporations that, if
there are competing organizations that say to represent the same
community, pick supporting a business league that puts corporate
interests first and doesn't explicitly commit to Software Freedom or
community interests.

Which is why it is so important that before this CTI plan proceeds the
FSF as the original fund raising organiation for the GNU Toolchain
signs off on it and makes sure that a clear charter and board that
works in the interest of the community and guarantees the money is
spend on Free Software.

Although personally I don't see why we really need such an
organization when we already have Sourceware.

Cheers,

Mark

[1] https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hat-statement-about-richard-stallmans-return-free-software-foundation-board
[2] https://inbox.sourceware.org/overseers/Yw5Q4b%2F2nqvAi3K4@elastic.org/