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Why make the Rust Foundation be its own corporate entity, instead of a project within another major non-profit like the Software Freedom Conservancy? (For thos

Why make the Rust Foundation be its own corporate entity, instead of a project within another major non-profit like the Software Freedom Conservancy? (For those not familiar, SFC is the home of Git, Godot Engine, Homebrew, Inkscape, QEMU, and Wine.) My worry would be that this is happening because Amazon, Google, and Microsoft want control over the foundation. (They are writing the checks, so no surprise they'd want to control how that money gets invested…)

steveklabnik 6y ago
As I mentioned below, the way to get good answers here is to contact them directly; nobody from the foundation is in this thread.
indolering 6y ago
They have an unhelpfully generic answer to that in their FAQ: "After spending a significant amount of time researching potential umbrella organizations, we decided that our best option was to incorporate an independent entity. Rust is a technology and community that is value driven and we simply didn’t find an organization that we felt was aligned with our community goals. This does mean more work for us, especially upfront, but we think the tradeoff is worth it." https://github.com/rust-lang/foundation-faq-2020/blob/main/FAQ.md#q-why-independent https://github.com/rust-lang/foundation-faq-2020/blob/main/F... As they are registering as a 501(c)6, I would assume that tax reasons would have impacting their decision not to join the SFC.
tialaramex 6y ago
I actually feel almost the opposite. Umbrellas are a good thing, but if you have the resources to go your own way, that makes more sense. So if your vision is that in five years nobody cares about Rust, these corporations have lost interest, the few dozen people still working on it need somebody to do paperwork and finances, then yeah, an umbrella is great. If your vision is that in five years Rust is ubiquitous and we are arguing about someone having too much control over the foundation an umbrella is exactly not what you want. An example of a project I think would be less healthy under an umbrella would be LibreOffice. An example of a project I think would be more healthy under an umbrella would be the Haiku Operating System. You largely cannot fight those big cheques, if you say "We don't want any corporate influence, go away", you lose, Amazon, Google and Microsoft do go away and build I dunno, "Titanium", a language eerily similar to Rust and with lots of manpower and money behind it. You can put some structures in place to reduce the worst influences of money, you obviously don't want a situation where one day everybody senior at the Rust Foundation wouldn't know an IEEE float from a UTF-16 code unit and the language is allowed to decay and fail while executives fill their pockets from the dwindling coffers. But there are practical limits, at some point you must trust in the basic goodness of your fellow humans. Our industry hasn't really been around long enough for the worst rot to set in, but there's a Vox story (I think?) years back about the problem of zombie foundations, with a set mission that ceased to make sense in the modern world. There's plenty of money but the intended charitable purpose no longer makes sense. A free primary school for the "disadvantaged" children in a long-since gentrified inner city region where the average child today is a millionaire is the sort of problem that arises.
- jakear 6y ago
  Titania, to follow the oxide metaphor. Which is honestly a pretty darn decent name.
higerordermap 6y ago
> My worry would be that this is happening because Amazon, Google, and Microsoft want control over the foundation. (They are writing the checks, so no surprise they'd want to control how that money gets invested…) I find this attitude surprising. They are paying for development, why they shouldn't have authority to dictate the priorities? If it was SFC, some other interests would be dictating the priorities anyway.
- Daho0n 6y ago
  > They are paying for development, why they shouldn't have authority to dictate the priorities? If you are sponsoring a foundation and can dictate the direction you aren't a sponsor but an employer and owner. Then the foundation is just a way to make good looking PR or get tax-cuts.
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  Companies shouldn't be able to control other people's projects just because they pay developers to work on it. The project's vision can't be corrupted to serve any one company's interests. I'd even say this should also hold true for every company's own products. Realistically, it all comes down to leverage and power. Who needs the other the most?

steveklabnik 6y ago

As I mentioned below, the way to get good answers here is to contact them directly; nobody from the foundation is in this thread.

indolering 6y ago

They have an unhelpfully generic answer to that in their FAQ: "After spending a significant amount of time researching potential umbrella organizations, we decided that our best option was to incorporate an independent entity. Rust is a technology and community that is value driven and we simply didn’t find an organization that we felt was aligned with our community goals. This does mean more work for us, especially upfront, but we think the tradeoff is worth it." https://github.com/rust-lang/foundation-faq-2020/blob/main/FAQ.md#q-why-independent https://github.com/rust-lang/foundation-faq-2020/blob/main/F... As they are registering as a 501(c)6, I would assume that tax reasons would have impacting their decision not to join the SFC.

tialaramex 6y ago

I actually feel almost the opposite. Umbrellas are a good thing, but if you have the resources to go your own way, that makes more sense. So if your vision is that in five years nobody cares about Rust, these corporations have lost interest, the few dozen people still working on it need somebody to do paperwork and finances, then yeah, an umbrella is great. If your vision is that in five years Rust is ubiquitous and we are arguing about someone having too much control over the foundation an umbrella is exactly not what you want. An example of a project I think would be less healthy under an umbrella would be LibreOffice. An example of a project I think would be more healthy under an umbrella would be the Haiku Operating System. You largely cannot fight those big cheques, if you say "We don't want any corporate influence, go away", you lose, Amazon, Google and Microsoft do go away and build I dunno, "Titanium", a language eerily similar to Rust and with lots of manpower and money behind it. You can put some structures in place to reduce the worst influences of money, you obviously don't want a situation where one day everybody senior at the Rust Foundation wouldn't know an IEEE float from a UTF-16 code unit and the language is allowed to decay and fail while executives fill their pockets from the dwindling coffers. But there are practical limits, at some point you must trust in the basic goodness of your fellow humans. Our industry hasn't really been around long enough for the worst rot to set in, but there's a Vox story (I think?) years back about the problem of zombie foundations, with a set mission that ceased to make sense in the modern world. There's plenty of money but the intended charitable purpose no longer makes sense. A free primary school for the "disadvantaged" children in a long-since gentrified inner city region where the average child today is a millionaire is the sort of problem that arises.

jakear 6y ago
Titania, to follow the oxide metaphor. Which is honestly a pretty darn decent name.

higerordermap 6y ago

> My worry would be that this is happening because Amazon, Google, and Microsoft want control over the foundation. (They are writing the checks, so no surprise they'd want to control how that money gets invested…) I find this attitude surprising. They are paying for development, why they shouldn't have authority to dictate the priorities? If it was SFC, some other interests would be dictating the priorities anyway.

Daho0n 6y ago
> They are paying for development, why they shouldn't have authority to dictate the priorities? If you are sponsoring a foundation and can dictate the direction you aren't a sponsor but an employer and owner. Then the foundation is just a way to make good looking PR or get tax-cuts.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
Companies shouldn't be able to control other people's projects just because they pay developers to work on it. The project's vision can't be corrupted to serve any one company's interests. I'd even say this should also hold true for every company's own products. Realistically, it all comes down to leverage and power. Who needs the other the most?