spi

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 22:05:43 -0700
tags/fdo

Affiliation with Software in the Public Interest

Freedesktop.org is all about getting things done, and most of the time that's just a matter of finding people to do whatever work needs doing, be that development, system administration or adding documentation to one of the wikis.

Sometimes, we need to buy hardware or services with actual money, and for that we constructed an LLC last year; prompted by the generous donation from Google of funds sufficient for most of our current hardware stack. Through this experience, it became clear that some “real” organization that offered greater transparency and structure to our limited financial dealings would be helpful. However, none of us felt like we could afford the time and energy necessary to construct such an organization on our own.

<p

Software in the Public Interest was created to hold the assets of the Debian project, and has since expanded to fulfill a similar role for many other projects, among them PostgreSQL, wxWidgets and Drupal. They provide precisely the kind of structure that freedesktop.org needs right now; focusing purely on helping manage the financial resources of an organization without being involved in the political or social structure. Their sole responsibility is to ensure that any tax-exempt donations are managed in accordance with various legal obligations, including the disposition of funds should the project cease to exist.

I think the affiliation of freedesktop.org with SPI will benefit us and make it possible to keep our project running smoothly into the future and help continue our advance towards world domination.