The Software Freedom Conservancy is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that serves as an umbrella for open source projects.
The Watir Development team is discussing applying to join the Conservancy.
Here is their application.
From: Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn@sfconservancy.org>
Date: Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 11:11 AM
Subject: Re: Watir Project interested in Joining the Conservancy
To: Bret Pettichord <bret@pettichord.com>
Bret Pettichord wrote at 12:26 (EDT) on Tuesday:
> I understand that you'll next accept applications in September, so
> talk to you later...
Actually, we're a bit behind on schedule of evaluations this year, so we
actually haven't had our February evaluation meeting. We delayed it to
April, although it may get delayed again.
Anyway, the good news for you is that you can apply and hopefully be
evaluated in the next few months. I've included application materials
below.
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The Software Freedom Conservancy encourages your project to apply for
Conservancy. Please be advised that applying doesn't guarantee your
project can join Conservancy; it's simply the first step in the process
of joining Conservancy.
The deadline for applications is 2011-04-15 at 23:59 UTC. Applications
that arrive after that time will *not* be considered until 2011-09-01.
To apply to the Conservancy, please answer fully all the questions
below, in a *single* email to <apply@sfconservancy.org>. Please try to
be as concise as possible while making sure to answer the questions
fully.
If the relevant information is already gathered and publicly available,
It's ok to include URLs as answers. However, if a given URL has lots of
information on it, please make sure that you direct us specifically to
the portions of the web page loaded by the given URL that are relevant in
answering the question.
Conservancy Application Questions:
* Please give a detailed description of the project.
* What FLOSS License(s) does your project use? Please include the
primary license, and list other licenses for code that is included.
(e.g., "The project as a whole is GPLv3-or-later, but about a dozen
files in the directory src/external/ are under the Apache-2.0
license")
* Please give us your roadmap and plans for future development of the
project, including both code and community plans.
* Please give us the main link to the projects primary website.
* Please give us a URL to a code repository we can clone and/or
checkout.
* Have you ever had funds held by the project, or by any individual
on behalf of the project? How and for what did you spend those
funds?
* Does your project owe funds to anyone?
* Has your project ever had legal trouble, been involved in legal
proceedings or received a letter accusing your project of patent,
copyright, trademark or other types of infringement?
* Please give a brief history of the project, focusing on how the
community developed and the general health of the community. Be sure
to include information on any forks or other disputes that have
occurred in the community.
* Please explain how your project is governed. Who makes the
decisions in the project? How do you resolve disputes,
particularly about non-code issues?
* If your project runs on Linux-based systems, please list all the
distributions that include your project, and what "repository area"
the package appears in. If you aren't packaged for any major
distributions, please tell us why you believe your project hasn't
been packaged yet.
* Does your project have any existing for-profit or non-profit
affiliations, funding relationships, or other agreements between the
project and/or key leaders of your project and other
organizations? Has the project had such affiliations in the past?
Please list of all of them in detail and explain their
nature. Even tangential affiliations and relationships should be
included.
* Please list the names, email addresses, and affiliations (e.g.,
employer) of key developers and major contributors. Include both
current and past contributors and developers. Please include date
ranges of when those developers/contributors were active.
Please make this list as extensive and complete as possible. You
need not include every last person who sent one patch, but please
include at least those who regularly sent patches or were/are
regular contributors. If you project has contributors who have
been inactive for more than five years, you need only to list such
inactive contributors if they made substantial contributions.
Please note that your answers will be shared with Conservancy's Board of
Directors, its Evaluation Committee (which is currently just a subset of
the Directors, but that may change in the future), and with some of
Conservancy's existing member projects leaders. We like to get as much
input as possible from Conservancy's existing project base when
evaluating new projects for membership.
Please submit the application in pure ASCII format, with paragraph fills
and line breaks designed for 80 column viewing. You don't need to
impress us with formatting; what will actually impress us is if you make
the information presented in a simple and clear way that is easily read
and understood when edited with GNU Emacs and emailed around internally
at Conservancy via standard email forwarding tools.
Before completing your application, please be sure to read our
application FAQ at: http://sfconservancy.org/members/apply/
Feel free to include any additional information you'd like us to review
in considering an application, but please try to be brief as possible.
Please note that we will ask that applying projects consider donating a
percentage of their funding to the general operating costs of the
Conservancy. This is a way to assure we can continue providing a high
level of service to all Conservancy projects. This is, however,
voluntary and negotiable, and we can discuss it in detail if your
project is accepted.
Our application deadlines are *hard* deadlines; if you miss it by just
one day, you'll have to wait until 2011-09-01. Please be advised that
you may get follow-up clarification questions on your application in
the first weeks of 2011-05. Please be prepared to respond to these
inquiries quickly to assure processing of your application in the
2011-04 group.
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--
Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy