Conservancy, Evergreen’s Non-Profit Home

Bradley M. Kuhn

Thursday 26 April 2012

In The Beginning …

• There was a computer.

• There were terminals.

• There were users.

• … and the users had freedom.

Ye Ol’ Four Freedoms

• to use.

• to learn and modify for yourself.

• to copy and share.

• to modify and share modified versions.

… Then Freedom Eluded Us

• They built licensing walls.

• By separating the software from the computer.

• Who Invented Licensing?

Who Invented Licensing?

As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. … [If] software is something to share … You prevent good software from being written.

• Gates convinces IBM to license rather than acquire DOS.

Who Fixed this Problem?

Who Fixed this Problem?

RMS

• Job at MIT’s AI lab in late 1970s and early 1980s.

• Programming their PDP–10!

• In the Golden Age.

MIT AI Lab: The Golden Age

• academic computing.
• software sharing.
• no licenses!

GNU Project

• RMS founds GNU project.

• Founded on idealism.

• Recruited volunteers.

• Paid non-profit staff.

• Those projects remain community-oriented …

• … but most are software-developer-oriented.

Proprietary Software Grows

• By the mid 1990s, proprietary software was the default.

• Programmers who didn’t want to use proprietary software had to write their own.

• Focus on developer tools (because they needed that first).

• But for users … ?

Proprietary Harms Users Too

• Meanwhile, users are harmed too.

• A (recent-ish) example from libraries community.
  • In 2009, Queens library rejects Sirsi’s system & seeks to buy an ILS from Horizon.
  • Srisi acquires Horizon to block this; discontinues Horizon’s product.
  • Settled for undisclosed terms.
  • This should not happen: users should control their own software.
  • References: 1, 2, 3

Free Software Helps?

• But, how does Free Software prevent this?

Copy, Right?

• Most software uses a contract EULA.

• This doesn’t work for Free Software …
  • … which needs worldwide distribution.

• Copyright, which governs software anyway, can do this.

Free Software Copyright License

• Roughly two different types of Free Sofware licenses:
  • permissive vs. copyleft
  • both want software freedom.
• Permissive licensing:
  • no legal requirement to share improvements.
  • authors usually still want it.
  • use social pressure.
• Copyleft.
  • prevents proprietarization by power of copyright.
  • share and share alike.
  • failure to do so is copyright infringement.
  • Evergreen’s license is a copyleft license, GPL.

The Danger of Our Success

• Open Source is a corporate fad now.
  • companies give lip service to “community”.
• Companies employ developers …
  • … maybe to work on Free Software (which is great!).
  • … but companies control employee’s time in their interest.

Where Things Are Heading

• FLOSS slowly goes toward for-profit corporate interest.

• Or, it’s purely thrown over the wall.
  • At corporate whim

• Project decisions are made by companies.

Software Freedom Governance?

• For-profits act in interest in shareholders.

• Those who care most about software are usually not shareholders.

• Corporate sponsorship are common.

• But for-profit control of projects can be dangerous.

• Interests only align sometimes with community.

Non-Profits are Different

• USA 501(c)(3) non-profits act in interest of the public good.

• Software freedom is best when in public good.

• Non-profit orgs (NPOs) are best place for software freedom.

What Can USA NPOs Do?

• Hold assets for the project, like trademarks:
  • Avoid the problem that occurred with Koha’s trademark.
• Collect donations for the project.
  • Distribute that money to advance project (and public good).

• Help leadership with non-technical decisions.

• Neutral ground when for-profit corporations sponsor.
  • Negotiate “peace treaties” with companies.
  • Conservancy recently did so: DIG licensing issue.

Funding Through Conservancy

• Travel to conferences.

• Handling Google SoC and other philanthropy programs.

• Conference invoicing and contracts (like this one).

• Stipends and paid development contracts for developers.

• Fiscal oversight.

Fiscal Oversight

• Part of my job is to preemptively prevent this:

What You Won’t Find Here:

There weren’t any of these in your conference bag:

What You Won’t Find Here:

There won’t be a mind reader at the reception Friday:

Fiscal Oversight

• Things are never egregious like that.

• More about watching IRS non-profit rules & ensuring compliance.

What’s Special About Evergreen?

• Don’t tell the other projects …
  • … but they’ll know when I put these slides online …
  • … but Evergreen is very special to Conservancy.

• Evergreen is the only Conservancy project led primarily by its users.

• This is important for the future

Next for Evergreen in Conservancy?

• SoC 2012.

• Conservancy hopes to help Evergreen raise more funds.
  • Hope to fund improvements users need via Conservancy.

• Trademark transfer from Georgia Public Library System.

• Ensuring compliance with the GPL.

More Info and This Talk’s License

• URLs / Social Networking / Email:
  • Conservancy: sfconservancy.org & @conservancy
  • Me: ebb.org/bkuhn & @bkuhn (identi.ca only)
  • Slides at: ebb.org/bkuhn/talks & gitorious.org/bkuhn/talks (source)