[LLVMdev] Offer of membership to LLVM into the Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc.

Bradley M. Kuhn bkuhn at sfconservancy.org
Wed Sep 19 15:13:16 PDT 2012


I'd like to follow up on Chris' message with a few details about how
Conservancy works.  Specifically, Conservancy has generally always offered
our services "a la carte", in the sense that while we have a very
extensive service plan ( http://sfconservancy.org/members/services/ ), I
don't think there's a single one of our projects that takes advantage of
all the services we offer; they pick and chose.

One of the reasons for this is that we have a wide diversity of projects (
http://sfconservancy.org/members/current/ ), from copylefted projects like
BusyBox to permissively licensed ones like Boost.  We've got
end-user applications like Evergreen and Mifos, and also programming
language infrastructure projects like PyPy.

With that level of diversity, usually each project needs very different
things.  We tailor our work with them to fit what the project's community
needs.  We'd do the same for LLVM if you decide to accept the offer of
membership.

Meanwhile, I'm really glad that LLVM is looking at all its options for
non-profit existence.  Each solution to this problem has its own tweaks
and trade-offs, and it ultimately is a question of good cultural fit. Thus,
I'd like to begin a conversation so the LLVM community as a whole can find
out all it wants to know about Conservancy as an option, so you can easily
compare it to your other options.  As a 501(c)(3) charity, Conservancy's
first and foremost charge is to serve the public good, and that public
includes both users of the software under our auspices and the individual
developers who contribute to it.  We thus want to hear all we can from any
stakeholder about what they want regarding a potential non-profit existence
for LLVM before finalizing anything.

Finally, Conservancy's mission isn't just to get projects to join: our mission
includs helping Free Software projects find the *right* non-profit home
for the project.  It's not uncommon that projects are offered membership
in Conservancy and go with another fiscal sponsor in the end.  We think
that's a great outcome, because we want to help projects make the right
choice.

I hope those interested in learning more will read the Fiscal Sponsorship
Agreement template and ask any questions you have.
--
Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy



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