"For some time now, I have been meaning to write a series of
blog posts setting forth my views on best practices in forming and
governing open source foundations. Why? Because despite the
increasing reliance of just about every part of our modern world
(government, finance, defense, and so on) on open source software
(OSS) and Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), there has been very
little written on the subject.
"That means that neither a community nor a corporation has much
to refer to in creating the kind of governance structure most
likely to ensure that the intentions of the founders are carried
out, that the rights of contributors are respected, and that the
code upon which end users will rely is properly maintained into the
future.
"Instead, we see un-incorporated but vital projects that find
themselves in peril if their corporate sponsors (e.g., Sun
Microsystems and Novell) are acquired, projects that have no way to
communicate with large numbers of the historical authors of their
code (Linux), and thousands of projects that have no legal
structure or sponsor (forge-hosted projects)."
