New subject: Offer of membership to Coreboot into Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc.

20 Nov 2013


      TL;DR: Coreboot applied to the Conservancy and has been offered
       membership.  The FSA template should be reviewed by all interested
       parties, and we need your help to draft three specific sections,
       which are discussed in detail at the bottom of this email.
Full Details:
I am excited to inform you that Conservancy's Project Evaluation
Committee has approved Coreboot for membership in the Software Freedom
Conservancy.  I apologize greatly for the long delay between your
application date and the date on which we offered you membership.
Conservancy does not offer membership until we're sure we can offer
services to the project.
The next step is to negotiate a formal agreement between the project and
the Conservancy, which is called a fiscal sponsorship agreement (FSA).
You can find a template of the agreement available on Conservancy's
website at: http://sfconservancy.org/members/apply/ConservancyFSATemplate.pdf
            http://sfconservancy.org/members/apply/conservancy-fsa-template.tex
Generally, Conservancy leaves it for the Coreboot community to decide
how you'd like to discuss the document internally.  Note that signing
such an agreement is a big step for the project and you should consider
the agreement carefully, in whatever forum is most appropriate for your
community.  Conservancy strongly suggests that a public discussion of
the FSA occur on the general discussion list for developers of your
project, which is why I've posted this information here on your public
list.
Also cc'ed is Conservancy's "Project Intake group", which can be reached
by the alias project-intake@sfconservancy.org and is comprised of the
following people:
   Bradley M. Kuhn, Tony Sebro, Jeremy Allison, Tom Callaway, Martin Michlmayr
All of us are members of Conservancy's Project Evaluation Committee and
will be happy to answer questions and you should also feel free to cc
that address, too, if you'd like, when asking questions.
Meanwhile, Conservancy's detailed discussion will be with the
application leads: Marc Jones, Ron Minnich, and Stefan Reinauer.
Ultimately, Conservancy will rely on the application leads to coordinate
the final details of the FSA with Conservancy.
Specifically, note that the FSA template is in fact, just that, a
template.  Most notably, we'll need to figure out together two key terms
of the agreement:
(a) who the initial signatories should be (ideally it should include
      anyone who has ever made substantial contributions to the project),
(b) who the Project Leadership Committee (PLC) should be, how it should
      govern itself, and what it should be called.  Note there are a few
      examples in the FSA template of how other projects have done this, but
      they are just guidelines, not choices.  The most important thing is to
      write something that describes the natural and existing leadership
      structure of your project.  Conservancy also is reluctant to accept
      PLC's that have fewer than three members.
There are a few other minor issues that we've raised in a private thread
with the application leads.
Please note that this offer will expire six months after it is made.  We
would be happy to extend that time constraint if we're in active
discussions with you about joining.
We look forward to Coreboot joining the Conservancy!
-- 
Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy