6 ms·

I have a lot of experience in building open source foundations, from my time at Apache, Eclipse and the Linux Foundation, lots of pros and cons across different

I have a lot of experience in building open source foundations, from my time at Apache, Eclipse and the Linux Foundation, lots of pros and cons across different entities in terms of how much professional help you want (versus volunteer labor). I generally don't recommend standing up your own foundation from scratch unless you're extremely well funded. The Linux Foundation essentially offers "Foundation as a Service" for projects. It hosts a variety of projects and organizations, from LetsEncrypt.org, to Kubernetes (CNCF) to GraphQL to NodeJS (OpenJS) to the R Consortium and more. I created a presentation here not so long ago about the process/benefits: https://www.slideshare.net/caniszczyk/bringing-an-open-source-project-to-the-linux-foundation-206551742 https://www.slideshare.net/caniszczyk/bringing-an-open-sourc... I'm happy to have a conversation if you ever wanted to chat more about the details.

Touche 7y ago
Does this mean that Linux Foundation has ultimate control of the foundation?
- rectang 7y ago
  Governance can be set up in a number of ways, depending on the charter, with power allocated to different stakeholders in different configurations. See slide 42 from Chris's presentation. As a Rust user, I would follow the creation of such a charter with great interest. https://www.slideshare.net/caniszczyk/bringing-an-open-source-project-to-the-linux-foundation-206551742/42 https://www.slideshare.net/caniszczyk/bringing-an-open-sourc... Moving away from Mozilla, regardless of destination, presents an opportunity for the most powerful stakeholders within the community to exert greater influence, many of whom I would be less comfortable with than Mozilla.
  - Touche 7y ago
    To be honest I don't know what this means. I was expected a yes or no answer. Does the Linux Foundation have final say over the organization or does its members?
    - rectang 7y ago
      Projects can be set up so that one entity (possibly a company which is a Linux Foundation Member) exerts dominant influence. This is one reason that many companies are comfortable bringing projects to the LF — and that's arguably better on balance for the Open Source ecosystem than them keeping those projects in-house and their governance murky. Rust, though, is already at Mozilla, whose influence seems to be benign. I'm curious, which Mozilla entity holds the trademark: is it the 501(c)(3) Mozilla Foundation, or is it their for-profit subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation?
      - steveklabnik 7y ago
        > I'm curious, which Mozilla entity holds the trademark: is it the 501(c)(3) Mozilla Foundation, or is it their for-profit subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation? I never thought about this, but TESS says it's Moco, which is what I'd expect.
        rectang 7y ago
        I wonder if it's reasonable to donate that trademark to the 501(c)(3) Mozilla Foundation and to then formalize a charter laying out Rust governance. For what it's worth I would have greater confidence in such an arrangement than I would in a 501(c)(6) Business League version of a Rust Foundation, which would in my view undermine independence.
        steveklabnik 7y ago
        I don't think that helps accomplish one of the main goals of this effort, which is to demonstrate independence.
steveklabnik 7y ago
I saw you posted this in other places too. Several of us have some LF experience, so we're already broadly familiar, but I appreciate it! We'll reach out if appropriate, thanks!
- caniszczyk 7y ago
  Thanks, I believe you're based in Austin also so happy to do coffee (unless I'm wrong)
  - steveklabnik 7y ago
    I am! If you ever want to get coffee about non-LF stuff, let me know :)
    - mylesborins 7y ago
      you two are both rad and this is the best interaction I've seen on the orange site in a while
      - bordercases 7y ago
        Because it's almost contentless?
        steveklabnik 7y ago
        It’s just a bit inside baseball; Myles is on the Node TSC, which is an organ of the Linux Foundation via the Node Foundation.
        lolrust0 7y ago
        It's a bit contentless and an example of the vapidity and 'community' that infects open source projects that get legs. Your e-mail is in your profile, and coffee between two human beings can be coordinated via such a mechanism, but then you wouldn't get to show off how connected you are, I suppose. You literally responded to someone criticizing the conversation to follow up that, no, indeed, the criticism has merit, and for some reason we care that you know who Myles is. That speaks a lot about what's important to you, and people who aspire to be like you, in this industry. I would have figured those who have watched other industries create "boards" and "foundations" and other charities where the seat on them becomes a brokered commodity would take pause before subjecting tech to the same drivel. Also: what "baseball?" Are you alleging you're behind the scenes in tech and we should all be privileged for you sharing this glimpse into how the world works with us? What an honor. How do we get to be as cool as you, dropping first names in HN comments of people who've created authority for themselves with mailman and an open source project? There's no baseball here, just vanity positions created to pad resumes and people who follow you on Twitter fawning over two programmers getting coffee. I have an @apache.org e-mail, too, it's not a status symbol, but you do you
xwowsersx 7y ago
Can you explain why it's a bad idea to start your own foundation unless well-funded? What exactly does the LF's FaaS provide?
- biggestlou 7y ago
  Event planning resources for conferences, graphic design help, legal staff who specialize in OSS issues, money for infrastructure costs (CI/CD, compute and storage resources), money for day-to-day tools (JIRA, Slack, Zoom, Discourse), documentation and web design resources, and much more. Basically all of the background conditions necessary for collaboration and ecosystem growth to be as unimpeded by resource scarcity as possible.
  - xwowsersx 7y ago
    Well that's pretty awesome. Are there qualifications besides being OSS with the proper licenses?

Touche 7y ago

Does this mean that Linux Foundation has ultimate control of the foundation?

rectang 7y ago
Governance can be set up in a number of ways, depending on the charter, with power allocated to different stakeholders in different configurations. See slide 42 from Chris's presentation. As a Rust user, I would follow the creation of such a charter with great interest. https://www.slideshare.net/caniszczyk/bringing-an-open-source-project-to-the-linux-foundation-206551742/42 https://www.slideshare.net/caniszczyk/bringing-an-open-sourc... Moving away from Mozilla, regardless of destination, presents an opportunity for the most powerful stakeholders within the community to exert greater influence, many of whom I would be less comfortable with than Mozilla.
- Touche 7y ago
  To be honest I don't know what this means. I was expected a yes or no answer. Does the Linux Foundation have final say over the organization or does its members?
  - rectang 7y ago
    Projects can be set up so that one entity (possibly a company which is a Linux Foundation Member) exerts dominant influence. This is one reason that many companies are comfortable bringing projects to the LF — and that's arguably better on balance for the Open Source ecosystem than them keeping those projects in-house and their governance murky. Rust, though, is already at Mozilla, whose influence seems to be benign. I'm curious, which Mozilla entity holds the trademark: is it the 501(c)(3) Mozilla Foundation, or is it their for-profit subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation?
    - steveklabnik 7y ago
      > I'm curious, which Mozilla entity holds the trademark: is it the 501(c)(3) Mozilla Foundation, or is it their for-profit subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation? I never thought about this, but TESS says it's Moco, which is what I'd expect.
      - rectang 7y ago
        I wonder if it's reasonable to donate that trademark to the 501(c)(3) Mozilla Foundation and to then formalize a charter laying out Rust governance. For what it's worth I would have greater confidence in such an arrangement than I would in a 501(c)(6) Business League version of a Rust Foundation, which would in my view undermine independence.
        steveklabnik 7y ago
        I don't think that helps accomplish one of the main goals of this effort, which is to demonstrate independence.

steveklabnik 7y ago

I saw you posted this in other places too. Several of us have some LF experience, so we're already broadly familiar, but I appreciate it! We'll reach out if appropriate, thanks!

caniszczyk 7y ago
Thanks, I believe you're based in Austin also so happy to do coffee (unless I'm wrong)
- steveklabnik 7y ago
  I am! If you ever want to get coffee about non-LF stuff, let me know :)
  - mylesborins 7y ago
    you two are both rad and this is the best interaction I've seen on the orange site in a while
    - bordercases 7y ago
      Because it's almost contentless?
      - steveklabnik 7y ago
        It’s just a bit inside baseball; Myles is on the Node TSC, which is an organ of the Linux Foundation via the Node Foundation.
        lolrust0 7y ago
        It's a bit contentless and an example of the vapidity and 'community' that infects open source projects that get legs. Your e-mail is in your profile, and coffee between two human beings can be coordinated via such a mechanism, but then you wouldn't get to show off how connected you are, I suppose. You literally responded to someone criticizing the conversation to follow up that, no, indeed, the criticism has merit, and for some reason we care that you know who Myles is. That speaks a lot about what's important to you, and people who aspire to be like you, in this industry. I would have figured those who have watched other industries create "boards" and "foundations" and other charities where the seat on them becomes a brokered commodity would take pause before subjecting tech to the same drivel. Also: what "baseball?" Are you alleging you're behind the scenes in tech and we should all be privileged for you sharing this glimpse into how the world works with us? What an honor. How do we get to be as cool as you, dropping first names in HN comments of people who've created authority for themselves with mailman and an open source project? There's no baseball here, just vanity positions created to pad resumes and people who follow you on Twitter fawning over two programmers getting coffee. I have an @apache.org e-mail, too, it's not a status symbol, but you do you

xwowsersx 7y ago

Can you explain why it's a bad idea to start your own foundation unless well-funded? What exactly does the LF's FaaS provide?

biggestlou 7y ago
Event planning resources for conferences, graphic design help, legal staff who specialize in OSS issues, money for infrastructure costs (CI/CD, compute and storage resources), money for day-to-day tools (JIRA, Slack, Zoom, Discourse), documentation and web design resources, and much more. Basically all of the background conditions necessary for collaboration and ecosystem growth to be as unimpeded by resource scarcity as possible.
- xwowsersx 7y ago
  Well that's pretty awesome. Are there qualifications besides being OSS with the proper licenses?