TWiki foundation

Why do we need one

• TWikiMerchandise
• Fund raising and distributing
• Paying developers and contributors for the less fancy work that needs to be done
  • Perhaps there's a need for a TWikiFoundation funded by companies that use TWiki so that there's an alternative motivation for those doing unfun work -- MeredithLesly on TWikiCompatibilityDiscussion)
  • GettingPaidToDevelopTWiki and OpenSourceFunding verifies that more would get done if work were funded.
• Security for the project independent of company sponsors
• Holding trademarkts and project infrastructure
• Press contact

And, from an earlier incarnation of this topic:

• Maintaining compatibility (TWikiCompatibilityDiscussion)
• Coordinating ExplorationThenConsolidation
• Choosing an ApplicationServer such as POE or CgiApplicationFramework

Whilst no one likes taxes, bear in mind that things like urban planning, road and rail networks and maintenance of core services is most efficiently and effectively conducted when someone is coordinating and initiatives are properly funded. ConsolidateNotification and Rationalisation of skins will not happen without agreement and sustained effort, but agreement will not come unless we come up with workable plans.

Many plans are not workable if they are not funded.

Many companies have a huge investment and dependency on TWiki.

If those companies want to protect their investment and influence the development of the furtherment of this project then TWiki needs their help.

Legalities

Nationality

The foundation will have to be based in a chosen country. The US are disregarded due to the legalities involved. The UK was suggested because of cheap, off-the-shelf non-profits (although it remains to be debated whether off-the-shelf fits our needs). Preference seemed to be for another EU country.

The by-laws will be put in the language where the foundation is based. This means that there has to be an official translation to (at least) English, so that we can all agree on the by-laws and be confident that the English version we agree upon is actually implemented by the foundation in whatever language is used.

It is usually required for the initial board members to be present at the registration of the foundation, to sign the papers. This might prove difficult, but can probably be solved by having those people show up at a notary office in their own locality, have them sign some proof of identity, and incorporate that into the documents of incorporation.

Decision making, by-laws

The highest decision making organ should be the TWiki community. To execute upon the will of the community, a board should be installed. The board consists of at least: president, secretary and treasurer.

Members

The by-laws need to specify who constitutes as a member of the TWiki community, in order to decide who has a vote in the decision making. This definition should:

• Prevent a 'take-over' by mass-subscribing new members to force a vote;
• Provide a low treshold to those who contribute (meritocracy);
• Not exclude users;

Board

The board will have limited decision making power, and should be seen as an executive body for the community. The board is put in place by the community with a vote.

Daily board, no power, highest decision making organ is community summit

Candidates:

President:

• PeterThoeny - seems like a logical choice, does Peter fancy this? Conflict with TWIKI.NET?
• CrawfordCurrie - would be willing to stand. Conflict with WikiRing/Personal interests?

Secretary:

Treasurer:

General board members:

• CrawfordCurrie - would be willing to stand if a disinterested president can be found

Taxes

Gifts should be deductable.

Cost

There will be a monetary as well as an organisational cost.

Funding

One of the main tasks of a TWikiFoundation would be to collect and distribute funds. This should be done in a way, the community would do it. Everybody who wants can get involved and look into the decisions taken.

Here is a suggestion for a procedure:

1. Create a PayPal-account for funds@twikiPLEASENOSPAM.org.
2. Collect funds via PayPal for that account.
3. Make public any transaction on the account, but keep incoming funds anonymous, if donators wish.
4. Especially make every outgoing money public.
5. Only give money from the funds-pot, after a successful voting in the community. Make sure, there is no cheating and no decisions taken by certain people, that do not apply to the given rules.

Distrubution by Voting on Funds

As it is the will of the community not to let few individuals decide on the distribution of funds, it should be a task for all TWiki-members. At first every Community-Member should be able to vote for or against a proposed project. This is how funds should be distributed:

• Every project is measured in TWiki-funding-points. Each point is worth 25,00 USD.
• The measure of TWiki-funding-points is defined by the shortest amount of time, that a community member evaluates for the completion a project. Example: "I think this boring work would be fulfilled be MaxMiller in 2 hours. It should be worth 2 points or 50,00 USD."
• Projects can be granted by the community before or after their completion. But each proposed project has to be proposed within 1 month.
• A project proposal can be raised by the project members themselves or by others.
• A project is not funded until the community had 7 days to vote on it.
• A project is not funded if 3 community members object on funding it. There is no need to argue or reasoning about objections.
• A project is not funded if not at least 5 community members, other than the one proposing it, approve it and vote for it.
• A project cannot be funded, if the PayPal-account does not have enough balance. In that case all approved projects are funded in chronological order as money "arrives".
• After 6 months projects, that could not be funded expire.
• Everybody can vote on a project until it is approved by the above mentioned rules and can be funded from the available TWiki-funds.
• Projects are not funded, if the project members object to accept the money. Then the money goes back to the fund.

Examples on the fund distribution

1. I do a boring job and want it to be funded.

1. I document my work in the "funding area". I propose a certain amount of points, that correspond to my time invest and my estimation of how long other experts would have needed.
2. I wait until my project is declined by 3 or approved by 5 community members and 7 days have passed.
3. funds@twikiPLEASENOSPAM.org sends me the money for my approved project.

2. I plan to do a boring job and want it to be funded.

• Same procedure like above, but community members could change the amount of points.

3. Somebody else did a great job and I want to fund him. ...

4. Anybody else should take over a very important or boring job and I want to find somebody. ...

Other means of funding

Some ways companies can help:

• Supplying labour of their employees (dedicated/part-time)
• Hiring one of the ConsultantsForHire for an internal project
• Cash for labour.
• Making donations

• We've not heard from companies on these topics. If you work for a company and would like you comments posted anonymously and without obligation please email me and I will put them up.

Voting

Course of action

1. Decide we want/need a foundation;
2. Put in place a 'temporary board';
3. Put short-term plans in place
4. Initial fund-raising to cover costs of starting the foundation and initial costs;
5. Formulate the by-laws (together with lawyer);
6. Elect the first board
7. Found the foundation!

Peter pointed out, that collecting money should not be done before having a foundation. Otherwise all collected money might be treated as personal income of Peter if we ran it through funds@twikiPLEASENOSPAM.org. Does anybody know how to establish an (non-profit) organization and would be willing to handle the process of establishing it. I would think, that nobody would object if we handle funds the way described above, if the founder of the organisation is its presendent at first. This could be changed later still. We could have an official "gathering" in Berlin. But if we had "an organization" we could already start to collect funds.

Examples

The FreeBSD foundation

"A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the FreeBSD Project.", http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/

What the FreeBSD foundation does (among other things):

• Yearly fundraising (november/december);
• Getting hardware (bought or sponsored) for testing drivers;
• Paying developers to implement new features;
• Getting legal advice (eg. GPLv3);
• Functions as a legal entity for the FreeBSD project when such a beast is required;
• Community building: sponsoring developers to travel to conventions for example;

Wikimedia foundation

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home

Apache Software Foundation

"The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation, incorporated in Delaware, USA, in June of 1999. The ASF is a natural outgrowth of The Apache Group, a group of individuals that was initially formed in 1995 to develop the Apache HTTP Server."

"The management of the Foundation is overseen by a board of directors, who are elected by the ASF membership on an annual basis according to the corporation's bylaws. The board appoints a set of officers to manage the day-to-day operations of the Foundation and oversee the ASF projects. Each project is managed by a self-selected team of technical experts who are active contributors to the project, according to whatever guidelines for collaborative development are best suited to that project."

According to their FAQ, these are the purposes of the foundation:

1. provide a foundation for open, collaborative software development projects by supplying hardware, communication, and business infrastructure;
2. create an independent legal entity to which companies and individuals can donate resources and be assured that those resources will be used for the public benefit;
3. provide a means for individual volunteers to be sheltered from legal suits directed at the Foundation's projects; and,
4. protect the 'Apache' brand, as applied to its software products, from being abused by other organizations.

PostgreSQL fundraising project

"The PostgreSQL Fundraising Project is an SPI affiliate project, controlled by its members, established to promote and support PostgreSQL, the world's most advanced and powerful open-source RDBMS (Relational Database Management System). The PostgreSQL Fundraising Project does not in any way control the development of the PostgreSQL project; rather its purpose is to raise funds to finance various PostgreSQL related activities including tradeshows, services, advertising, legal expenses, travel expenses and general advocacy. We encourage donations from individuals and companies.", http://fundraising.postgresql.org/About

Rather than having a foundation, the PostgreSQL project manages funding through SPI, an umbrella not-for-profit that does fund-raising and distribution for various open source projects. The PostgreSQL fundraising project is not directly involved with development of PostgreSQL, but facilitates the PostgreSQL community at large.

GNOME foundation

"The GNOME Foundation will work to further the goal of the GNOME project: to create a computing platform for use by the general public that is completely free software."

"To achieve this goal, the Foundation will coordinate releases of GNOME and determine which projects are part of GNOME. The Foundation will act as an official voice for the GNOME project, providing a means of communication with the press and with commercial and noncommercial organizations interested in GNOME software. The foundation may produce educational materials and documentation to help the public learn about GNOME software. In addition, it may sponsor GNOME-related technical conferences, and represent GNOME at relevant conferences sponsored by others, help create technical standards for the project and promote the use and development of GNOME software.", http://foundation.gnome.org/

Members (those who can vote, candidate themselves as board member, etc..) must be contributors.

Linux Foundation

Url: http://www.linux-foundation.org

About

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007 by the merger of the Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group, it sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and is supported by leading Linux and open source companies and developers from around the world. The Linux Foundation promotes, protects and standardizes Linux by providing unified resources and services needed for open source to successfully compete with closed platforms.

Activities

The Linux Foundation does not build Linux, nor does it compete with existing Linux companies. Rather it fosters the growth of Linux by focusing on the following areas:

• Protecting Linux by sponsoring key Linux developers and providing legal services
• Standardizing Linux and improving it as a platform for software development
• Providing a neutral forum for Collaboration and Promotion

Members

See http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Members basically the who-is-who of IT business. Note, that members of the LF are companies, not individual developers, that support and sponsor Linux.

Board

If you look at http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Board you will see that the board members are all far from neutral wrt Linux. They all have a formal relationship to some for-profit organization that itself is member of the Linux Foundation.

Working groups

See http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Workgroups

• Accessibility
• Carrier Grade Linux
• Debugging
• Desktop Linux
• Linux Sound and Multimedia
• Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
• FOSSBazaar - governance best practices, automation tools, open communication to accelerate adoption
• Green Linux
• Internationalization
• Mobile Linux
• Naming
• Packaging
• Printing
• Virtualization

Trademark

Besides regulating the use of the "Linux Foundation" trademark LF, it is closely coupled with the Linux Mark Institute that takes care of the "Linux" trademark and acts as the exclusive licensor for "Linux".

KDE e.V.

Url: http://ev.kde.org/

About

KDE e.V. is a registered non-profit organization that represents the KDE Project in legal and financial matters.

"The Association's purpose is the promotion and distribution of free desktop software in terms of free software, and the program package 'K Desktop Environment (KDE)' in particular, to promote the free exchange of knowledge and equality of opportunity in accessing software as well as education, science and research."

Quote from the articles of association of the KDE e.V.

Activities

KDE Free Qt Foundation

The KDE e.V. and Trolltech jointly founded the KDE Free Qt Foundation in 1998. The purpose of this foundation is to ensure that the Graphical User Interface Toolkit Qt on which KDE is based will always be available as free software.

aKademy

Since 2003 the KDE e.V. organizes an annual meeting of the KDE community. It includes a conference, time for coding and meetings and the annual membership meeting of the e.V. and is know under the name aKademy since 2004. It is the biggest meeting of the worldwide KDE community.

Infrastructure

The KDE e.V. helps running the infrastructure needed by the KDE community. This includes servers for SVN, mail, web site, bug tracking, download.

Events

The KDE e.V. helps representing KDE at events like trade shows and conferences. It does this by subsidizing travel costs or by providing material like the KBoothBox.

Developer Meetings

The KDE e.V. supports focused developer meetings. These small but intensive get-togethers of developers to work on dedicated topics for a few days have proven to be a very efficient tool to get useful and exciting work done. The e.V. supports these by taking over travel costs and helping with organization.

Trademarks

The KDE e.V. owns the trademarks on KDE and the K Desktop Environment logo. They are registered in the United States and the European Union.

Members

There are lots. Mostly anybody active on KDE is member of the KDE e.V. There is a special procedure in how to become a member. You will have to find an already existing member that is suggesting you and fill out a questionare.

In contrast to other foundation the KDE e.V. is focusing on individual contributors, bringing them together in working groups

Working groups

See http://ev.kde.org/workinggroups/

• Marketing Working Group (MWG) - Coordination of Marketing and Promotion
• Human Computer Interaction Working Group (HCI WG) - Usability, Accessibility, Artwork, Internationalisation
• Technical Working Group (TWG) - Release Coordination
• System Administration (sysadmin) - Administration of KDE servers

-- Contributors: MartinCleaver, RafaelAlvarez , KoenMartens, MichaelDaum

Discussion

-- MartinCleaver - 09 Apr 2006

I'm unlikely to do boring stuff if I don't get paid. And I don't think I'm alone in that.

-- MeredithLesly - 09 Apr 2006

I won't do boring stuff even if I get paid.

-- ArthurClemens - 09 Apr 2006

I try to avoid it, but it's nice to eat. There is a serious point here, however. And many companies do support OSS via financial support of one form or another.

-- MeredithLesly - 09 Apr 2006

Some stuff just needs doing. Given the chance I'll do interesting and paid rather than something interesting and not-paid.

-- MartinCleaver - 09 Apr 2006

http://wiki.ehow.com/Start-a-501c3-Nonprofit-Organization

-- WillNorris - 10 Apr 2006

New Conservancy Offers Gratis Services to FOSS

-- WillNorris - 10 Apr 2006

http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/

-- RafaelAlvarez - 10 Apr 2006

I refactored the topic a bit, and added some of my own notes. I will invest more time in this soon. The above notes are just a summary of my first (well, and second) thoughts on the subject.

-- KoenMartens - 04 Sep 2007

I can only speak for http://c-dot.co.uk, my own consultancy business. I already pour a lot of effort into TWiki at no cost to the community. Having this effort recognised by a foundation would be a real positive, in my eyes. I would like to see a president from the user community, rather than the provider community, but that's just me.

-- CrawfordCurrie - 06 Sep 2007

It's hard to pin this down because the relationship is yet to be cleared between TWiki Foundation and the rest, e.g. TWiki.Net and WikiRing or any other TWiki consultancy companies and the community at large.

If TWiki Foundation direction is more towards a mediator among these, it may be best to have what Crawford mentioned. However, if it tends more towards on the benefit of the consultancy companies and TWiki.Net, I would rather have a President within such providers who can drive TWiki for their benefit.

That said, how about Switzerland? Bear in mind, we don't have much choices especially when we need to keep the reputation up. We wouldn't want a TWiki Foundation in Zimbabwe even though everything is in English right?

-- KwangErnLiew - 08 Sep 2007

I am not so sure I really like the idea of developers granting each other money.

I fear the negative feelings like jealousy, the A team (paid) and the B team (unpaid).

The coders vs the testers.

Coders vs the people that take care of the practical things.

Old friends vs the new comers.

When you run a business and get clients that pay you for a specific service it is something completely different. I have no bad feelings with TWIKI.NET and Wikiring and the many individual consultants that TWiki customers/users hire to implement things they need. Here it is clear that individuals have business relationships with clients to get specific things done. Or clients that pay for a subscribed service.

But I am concerned about the idea that some developers will give other developers money. The funding is going to be very small anyway so I am not worried about the money itself. I am deeply concerned that disagreements can split the community.

If a foundation had the purpose to fund the server hardware and network expenses then it is different because that does not create any tensions. Such resources benefit us all. The foundation could also fund our summits paying part of the expenses.

A foundation can be a good thing but it can also become a source of negative feelings between those that get and those that don't.

-- KennethLavrsen - 08 Sep 2007

I don't think a TWikiFoundation that is run by the consultants, for the benefit of the consultants offers anything new. The WikiRing partnership is already such a place. What TWiki is missing, is something that can co-ordinate and hold monies, and more importantly infrastructure that are vital to the projects existance.

For example, the servers (or Domain!) that we depend on - for them to be owned or held by a comercial entity, would enable them to hold them to ransom, or sell them off..

I'm not suggesting that TWiki.NET would do this, but as it's a commercial company, whoever buys TWiki.NET (for millions...), might not be so interested in sharing.

For this reason, I'd also feel more comfortable if the mainstay of the board are not consultants, but I think this is rather unrealistic. Until 2005 Peter and I would have been obvious non-consultant choices, and then suddenly, we're both TWiki consultants

ps: Switzerland I think would be less useful - its not an EU country.

-- SvenDowideit - 09 Sep 2007

On reading the comments above I am increasingly convinced that neither Peter, nor I, nor anyone else with a direct commercial interest in TWiki, should take the presidency of a TWiki foundation. I don't have a problem with the board carrying representatives of those groups; I just think the president needs to be independent.

-- CrawfordCurrie - 09 Sep 2007

Let me emphasize that in my opinion, the president nor any other board member should really have much power. They are merely 'puppets' if you will, that act upon the directions taken from the community. Someone needs to run day-to-day operations, that doesn't neccesarily mean those same people make the decisions. It is all about how much power they are given in the by-laws. And imho that should be close to none, just what is needed to run those day-to-day operations, with a direct consultation of the community when bigger decisions are to be made.

As for the money flow, indeed it will probably be small. The idea is, that there are things that no-one really wants to touch from time to time, but that are vital to the further advancement of the project. It'd be nice if, at some point, the foundation would be able to fund such work, regardless of who picks it up.

Perhaps it is wise to come up with profiles for the prospective board members, and then have a round of sollicitations with a community-based decision at some point.

-- KoenMartens - 09 Sep 2007

I believe a foundation would benefit TWiki.org. Maybe best to start small and with low amtibions regarding funds and so. I don't see problems with consultants, companies like TWiki.net or others being on the board. Like Koens writes.

-- LarsEik - 18 Jan 2008

Sounds like drawing up a fair constitution and policies is the next step?

-- KwangErnLiew - 19 Jan 2008

I am against a foundation. It adds yet another commercial reason to fight on this project. I have had enough of public fights about commercial interests the past days.

-- KennethLavrsen - 20 Jan 2008

I guess this shows that the proponents of the TWikiFoundation are not explaining it well. In my opinion the TWikiFoundation should be created to avoid the commercial issues. For example, the donated servers would be held by the Foundation, and thus the community would be both resonsible, and in control of its resources. Similarly, that foundation would have the organisational and decision making clout to reduce the commercial impacts on the open source twiki.org project.

For me, alot of the last 2 weeks 'commercial fighting' have been a reaction to the (again imo) inapropriate messages by TWIKI.NET - If those statements were not on some of the press releases (aparently Peter is not resending them?), and similar issues with the TWikiHistory, none of the rest of us would be expecting our commercial interests to be represented.

-- SvenDowideit - 21 Jan 2008

I am with Kenneth, to bring up this topic at this time is really not in the best interest of building consensus within the community; we had lots of interesting discussions recently on twiki.org. Before we even think of incorporating a foundation we need to get an agreement on the purpose, what form, where to incorporate, who is on the board. We have a relatively small active community; running a legal non-profit takes time. Who is ready to take the extra work-load? Do we want to outsource the operation of the non-profit, e.g. spend donation money on administration? How to bootstrap without cash assuming we outsource?

This morning I got an e-mail that included the following:

• proposal to have a foundation incorporated in the Netherlands, by a WikiRing consultant
• not having me in the board of the foundation "no twiki.net or wikiring personel"
• asking me to turn over the TWiki trademark to the foundation

I feel that this move would bad for the open source TWiki project, especially at this time. I have been taking good care of the community and trademark for almost 10 years now. I have spent thousands of dollars personally to support the community (hosting, traveling for speaking engagements, my personal time). I plan to continue doing so in the future. So, getting this e-mail concerns me deeply, making me wonder what the real agenda here is. I am disappointed by these proposals, especially the form and timing.

I listed the foundation question already as one agenda item we can discuss in mid Feb at the TWikiCommunitySummit2008Q1. I encourage everybody who is really interested in bringing the TWiki community together to make best efforts to participate in this summit. This is good timing.

-- PeterThoeny - 23 Jan 2008

Please stop these destructive discussions in public.

-- KennethLavrsen - 23 Jan 2008

As the author of the aforementioned email, i believe Peter misrepresents the content.

I offered, as i have on several other occasions on eg. irc, to take up the responsibilities of getting this thing off the ground. I am willing to invest the time in it. Naturally, if i am to actually carry out the administrative duties they would have to be carried out in the Netherlands, as that is where my experience with by-laws and registrations is. I would settle for any other country, but that would entail my services would be of no use. I do not know anything about foreign association law.

As to my wikiring-consultancy status, i only recently obtained it. This was before i put myself on this topic as a candidate for the board. I have just removed myself. If it is considered an conflict of interest to be a member of wikiring, i'd be willing to leave the wikiring in order to invest my time in TWiki.org.

As for 'the real agenda': it is in this topic. At least, as i and others have written down. It can serve as input to the community summit. I will not be able to attend unfortunately, so that leaves me out of the decision loop anyway.

Anyway, the offer is here: i'm willing to invest time in this. I have experience with member-based organisations, and am currently closely following the incorporation of the european postgresql user group.

@Kenneth: i do not know whether my words above are considered destructive. If so, please direct me to the proper non-public channels.

-- KoenMartens - 23 Jan 2008

Kenneth, the question of a TWikiFoundation is out. We need to discuss. The only legitimate way to discuss this is in the public, because it is a public affair. The only way to discuss this at all is constructive.

So let's be open-minded to any possible argument. Don't rule out any option before a real discussion has even started. And don't harden your own stance too early, please. I wished my comment would be as dispensable as Peter's or Kenneth's.

-- MichaelDaum - 24 Jan 2008

If we really wanted to create a foundation, it would make sense to figure out a scheme for raising initial funds ($100.000+) and set it's directions in stone.

Starting a foundation will mean months (if not years) of hard work outside ascii-land - and further, once it is established, alone the needed ongoing effort is clearly more than what any of us regulars has any interest in running either.

Personally I have a problem of recognizing any value of a foundation in the current setup.

We do have a real problem though, which is in the fact that there currently is a (near total) lack of trust in the community.

I agree with Peter that this situation can (only?) be improved by meeting face to face - it is a shame that TWikiCommunitySummit2008Q1 will not be the event that brings together enough of the key community to be able to really establish trust. Those of us present at TWikiCommunitySummitRome2007 saw what can be achieved and the amount of consensus it is possible to establish - and especially in the light of the (equally?) low expectations at that point.

If we can get into a situation where we have trust, a foundation is not necessarily a large step. But without trust it is just an impossible dream.

-- SteffenPoulsen - 24 Jan 2008

Good input Steffen.

Michael, I did not want to stop the healthy debate about TWiki Foundation. You should know by now what I meant.

I thought my short statement was enough explanation why I am against but I will be happy to explain it further.

A TWiki foundation controlled by people with economic interests is in my view unethical. I actually think most agree on that by now. We cannot have someone sitting giving out money to his friends that represent the same brand or sit in the same company.

And I do not believe that anyone independent person such as me can survive it either. I would personally never take on that task. And I would not trust that anyone is really independent. Am I really independent? Would I push for the little funding to be spent on features that benefit by own department? I prefer to see openly who has which interest.

And I do not think the foundation would receive any funding in the first place.

If I want a new feature in TWiki and I want it bad enough to wanting to accelerate it by funding it - I will go to a developer I trust can make the feature well.

TWiki is under a lot of pressure from our competitors. Other non-open source wikis are developing with record speed and TWiki is left behind only attracting the IT type companies where some local geek is willing to spend the time and energy on installation and maintenance.

What this project need to focus on is getting the developer community increased by a factor 10.

We have an incredible opportunity on this project. We have a good base product. It is lagging a bit behind. Our Wysiwyg editor is at least a year late and for sure not as stable as our competitors. Our TWiki engine needs some new technology. But it is still a kick-ass product worth investing in.

What really encourage me is that in our "inbox" of feature proposals are all the right ideas, all the right features to do make a giant leap for TWiki. And they are committed feature proposal raised by our finest developers. But they are also huge pieces of work and not at all sexy features that companies will normally hire a consultant to do. So we have a major challenge.

Instead of spending energy on a foundation that I do not believe can work I'd rather look at alternatives. I think the payback for alternative initiatives would be much higher than creating a foundation without any real purpose.

How did I get involved in TWiki? I installed it. I loved it. I wanted to improve it. I needed help sometimes. I started hanging around. I found that I had some talents that were needed and considered boring for developers and started contributing. I think it is easier to recruit people in a new project, where the code base is small and easy to overview, and most people are at the same low beginner level when it comes to the technology used. TWiki is now a huge beast with a very small developer community. Very very small. I think we need to consider new ways to recruit people, which I guess was also the original goal of the foundation.

• We need to transform to a more friendly community
• We need to make is easier to join. We have a complex product with a lot of code. That we cannot change maybe we need a TWikiDeveloperSchool? A kind of meetup similar to a Linux install party where people can join and get help with things like
  • Getting a TWiki checked out of our SVN
  • Getting the CPAN dependencies installed
  • Getting a pseudo-install working
  • Understanding how our bugs/SVN procedures work
  • Getting an introduction to our unit test framework learning to write your own first little unit test
  • Understanding the architecture of TWiki. How does things work?
  • Understanding templates
  • Understanding rest script
  • Understanding Skins
  • Understanding compatibility and what the existing customers expect and what they do not like today
  • etc etc
• We need the team spirit back
• We need customers to give feedback. Not just bugs but also say when we have done something great that they love

This TWikiDeveloperSchool can be both physical and in virtual space. Are you guys willing to share your knowledge with newcomers like this? I for sure would share all I know and I would gladly delay some development for a few months to get something like this going.

The hardcore development part of this could actually become a good revenue for some of you consultants. It is near impossible for a small fish in a large company to raise real funding for a feature in an open source project. But it is easy to get several training days paid on the department training budget. I would love to go to TWikiDeveloperShool and pay for training sessions in the parts of TWiki I do not understand. That would kick ass!

-- KennethLavrsen - 24 Jan 2008

Good inputs.

The TWikiDeveloperSchool idea is great! But who will be managing it? I'm all for reaching out the community in various ways. However, at moment, there isn't an organisation that does anything. Or will TWiki.NET take this on?

Not forgetting of the plethora of conventions, exhibitions and the like. With TWikiFoundation, the possibilities are endless. FOSDEM is coming up, wouldn't it be great if TWiki was part of it in some way? Or is TWiki.NET taking this on too?

I think the main purpose of TWikiFoundation is to officiate the spreading of TWiki through various means, with the diligent support of TWiki consultancy companies/individuals, WikiRing and TWiki.NET. That's how I see it.

If this kicks off, in any case, Peter should be involved one way or another, but I hope he stands neutral in TWikiFoundation to ensure that TWikiFoundation is not being naughty. (I don't know how to define "naughty" in this context).

-- KwangErnLiew - 24 Jan 2008

Great idea in its own. But not related to a TWikiFoundation. A TWikiFoundation is not about attracting new developers. It is more a sort of entity sponsors can talk to. Right now, we don't have a "TWiki contact point" other than Peter and TWiki.net. A sponsor might want to sponsor TWiki.org, the OSS project, more than TWiki.net, a for-profit company already capable of making money on its own.

-- MichaelDaum - 24 Jan 2008

Peter asked some good questions above. Before we even think of incorporating a foundation we need to get an agreement on the purpose, what form, where to incorporate, who is on the board. We have a relatively small active community; running a legal non-profit takes time. Who is ready to take the extra work-load? Do we want to outsource the operation of the non-profit, e.g. spend donation money on administration? How to bootstrap without cash assuming we outsource?.

A number of us, including me, have commercial interests that impinge on TWiki, and we find it difficult to separate our commercial activities from those of the open source project. The purpose of a foundation is, I think, simply to establish and execute rules of governance for the project, such that the project is run for the benefit of all the end users and contributors. A foundation is one way - not the only way - of restructuring governance of the project to eliminate any potential conflicts of interest.

The advantage of a foundation is that a legal entity would be ina position to raise funds, and accept donations (e.g. of equipment).

I thought the initial summary in this topic gave a pretty good intro to what the foundation would look like. I have no experience of running a foundation, so can't comment on the time and effort it takes, but as far as I can see from a (cursory) google trawl of such organisations in the UK, then once the incorporation is done the maintenance effort is minimal. A "company limited by guarantee" is typically used in the UK by groups such as clubs and societies, small charities etc. Only if donations in any FY exceed £5000 ($10000) are you required to register for charitable status, to maintain tax exemption. I can't tell if TWiki would be registrable as a charity. In either case, as long as records are kept, then preparation of annual accounts would cost of the order of £500 per year. Given a subscription basis for membership, that amount could easily be raised. I imagine similar structures exist elsewhere in the EU, if not the world.

Note that I'm not saying a foundation is a good idea - I'm not sure yet that it is - but it doesn't sound all that arduous to kick one off, should we choose to go that way. I would like to understand all the possible models of governance before jumping to conclusions about which one is best, and to do that we need to at least have an open discussion on the topic.

-- CrawfordCurrie - 24 Jan 2008

I understand your need Michael. And it is for sure worth considering. A point of contact that can be made without the overhead of a legal foundation. We can define a small team that can facilitate/mediate contact between sponsors and consultants. We can actually also do this in a more open way with some "job centre" application where sponsors that do not have preference for specific developers can post a specific need for development. And the twiki community can post features that people have raised, that we need funding for because it is too large to do as pure volunteer work.

It would take away the risk of some community members being subject to suspicion for being biased and we would not need to setup any legal entity with all the overhead this creates because the actual exchange of funding happens directly between sponsor and developer.

There is a very long list of consultants on ConsultantsForHire. If we could get more of those utilized it could have a huge positive impact on TWiki.

And if some of our the potential sponsors could get speedy quality development done of features they need I think TWiki could make get a huge competitive advantage as a product.

When I look at the current situation TWIKI.NET has a product which is not taking on development of features. It is selling a long term service for companies that do not have a company geek, or are afraid that their current company geek may quit and leave them with their pants down. And the many consultants are more in the "hired gun" type of business. There is not really a competition for the same clients between independent consultants and TWIKI.NET. On the contrary I see TWIKI.NET potentially being the most important sponsor.

For all of us to have success the most important common interest is to make TWiki the obvious choice of Wiki for any enterprise. Both for new customers. And for the many many that now have a small grass root installation and wants to move to the next step and make it a corporate mission critical application. Staying strong and united is key to this.

What do you say Michael? A job center!

-- KennethLavrsen - 24 Jan 2008

Hey Kenneth, all these good ideas Fits so well in my dream of a shiny new TWiki.org future ...

But I think the concept of a TWikiFoundation is by far clear to all. While some want it to generate jobs in a marketplace kind of way, others want to make it the origin decision power is legitimated from. Infact, most OSS foundations have no decision power in itself other than a supportive role. They are charity organizations. They guard the goals of the project expressed in a constitution, sometimes fullfills the role of a a holder of patents and trademarks, guaranteeing that things stay free and are not put at risk in one way or the other. They serve as a door sponsors can knock on; it organizes summits etc.

-- MichaelDaum - 24 Jan 2008

Steffen, I think you overestimate the initial funds needed. You are right though, that without trust setting up a foundation will only introduce disaster. I don't doubt though, that those difficulties can be overcome. In the mean time, i feel it is only healthy to explore the possibilities.

Kenneth, a foundation could be able to let the project thrive independent of economic interests. That does not preclude that economic entities wish to directly seek the paid support of developers. By no means should the foundation be involved with that, imho. And when companies want to sponsor the foundation, and thus the twiki.org infrastructure, that is of course fine. But it should not entail that they then have a bigger vote than any other user.

As for the matter of the composition of the board, that is up to the community to decide. I'm happy to hear whatever suggested possibilities. There should be no big power with the board anyway.

Your TWikiDeveloperSchool sounds like a good plan, but it needs a long term entity supporting it. Precisely the reason it would be good to have one. To be able to set out a course for the long-term. To be able to act out to press, funding organisations, etc..

I can feel sympathy for your 'let the market decide'. Just create a market-space, or maybe hook up to existing ones such as sourceforge recently introduced. My point being, that this will mostly be short-term based arrangements. Feature X, get it done, pay-off. Next. The project needs some guidance independant of market fluctuations.

I must concur with Crawford, that maintaining a foundation of some sort is a relatively light affair, if you choose so. It depends on the ambitions you set for the foundation. I'm not in favour of setting up a full-fledged bureaux that goes through the administrative motions just to be able to sustain itself. That'd be a waste. Probably, not much would change in the current activities, apart from a structure in decision making and the availbility of a legal entity representing the project. There are some good examples out there, they seem to manage.

I feel we have only just touched the surface of the TWiki community. There are so many out there, that seldomly or never visit twiki.org, that don't attend irc meetings. With a directed effort, we can tap that potential.

-- KoenMartens - 24 Jan 2008

The TWikiDeveloperSchool requires that some consultants defines a number of training classes and put them in a twiki.org topic where the training is organised. And I tell you right away. I would personally be interested in attending such a class.

On the foundation. Who steps forward? Who does not have any commercial interest. Koen. Inside or outside WikiRing. You are a professionel consultant. You have a company that develops software. You are not independent either.

-- KennethLavrsen - 24 Jan 2008

Question: where is the conflict of interests of someone on the board of a TWikiFoundation and driving a TWiki business meanwhile? This gets ruled out even before the duties and responsibilities of a TWikiFoundation are defined.

-- MichaelDaum - 26 Jan 2008

It is a simple conflict of interest. You put a person in a position where he has influence on assigning funding to himself, or people that he is associated with, or for features his own organization will benefit from at the expense of other parties interests.

-- KennethLavrsen - 26 Jan 2008

But the foundation does not have this power.

-- MichaelDaum - 26 Jan 2008

As I see it, the chairman/board/whatever of the TWikiFoundation should not "rule", but "execute" the community decisions, which will be taken on the Release Meeting. In that case, there would be no difference between the chairman trying to convince people to favor his need, than a Core developer trying to convince people to favor his need.

-- RafaelAlvarez - 26 Jan 2008

Actually, the foundation is not even there yet With regards to community decisions, imho it is not a given fact that they will exist at all. Probability is that "community disagreement" is much more likely, especially when more of the community begins to have monetary interests in TWiki. Establishing fair and effective voting mechanisms is not easy - there is a reason representative democracy is so wide spread.

So in real life the "high level" directions / elections that the community will supply to the foundation will end up day-to-day decisions that the foundation will then carry out on its own - and I agree with Kenneth that it would be good to establish criteria for which people are eligible / ineligible for this task.

I suggested to raise $100.000 above, which would give the foundation an initial life span of ~10 years assuming a burn rate of roughly $10.000 a year. If there's a way the foundation can get by without noticeable costs that's just great by me - but some assurance that the chosen setup guarantees a foundation still around in 10 years time would be needed.

Yes, we could go for an extremely lightweight foundation just holding the trademark, but what is the point? Peter is carrying out that task already - at an excellent cost to the community.

Does anybody have examples of "real life use cases" that the above mentioned foundations has handled / handles that has made / makes really good sense to their communities? Real life examples are often easier to gain understanding from than theoretical debate.

-- SteffenPoulsen - 26 Jan 2008

Sorry all, I just discovered this topic now. I will just shed the small insight I gained by being involved in the X Consortium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System, the W3 Consortium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W3c and having a project (Batik) in the apache foundation: Twiki is really not big enough for the Foundation question yet. Basically, it is time to start a foundation when:

• you already have sponsors eager to pour so much money on it (not just simple customers: customers will pay for a feature and leave you as soon as they are satisfied) that you cannot see what to do with it
• you need to federate an industry on a layer above the simple technology: for X it was fighting Sun proprietary News system, for the W3C stopping the divergenge between IE & mosaic, for apache, all the paraphernalia above the simple http server. But basically the work to have the platform is done before thinking of a foundation.
• running a foundation is heavy. X & W3C started at MIT/CERN with ressources provided by MIT/CERN (salaries, offices, travels, assistants). It was only when the ressources of MIT weren't enough to handle the demands of potential users that a foundation was created.
• there must be a benevolent dictator as ultimate recourse, and ultimate veto power, even if the daily work is democratic. Without a Bob Scheilfer, Tim Berners-lee, Mark Shuttleworth, ... a foundation cannot start. As everything is open source this is actually not a threat, as people can still fork if they disagree.

So, basically, it is much, much, too early to think of a foundation. Once you get people wanting to give a steady run of money into twiki in more quantity that can be absorbed by contractual work with TWiki.net, Wikiring and others we can think about a foundation. Wanting to receive money isnt what can make a foundation exist. In the meantime, let's Twiki.net & Wikiring develop the market, and twiki.org develop the code+docs.

So, when you say "We've not heard from companies on these topics.", you can just stop here and stop thinking of a foundation. We are not there yet. First, TWiki.net & wikiring must be able to grab enough money to thrive. Then, if there is money left, well, a foundation would be a good idea, otherwise the foundation will be just another competitor for customer money.

-- ColasNahaboo - 27 Jan 2008

I like the idea of a legitimate foundation. It will help the government and it could collect donations. A big advantage, that could help to fund further TWiki-development.

-- MartinSeibert - 06 Feb 2008

Hi all,

after my general remark in february, I would like to heat up this discussion again. I am only halfway through all the things, that were said. Sorry for that. This is my impression: - Peter is in favor of the foundation and wants to participate. - Koen is in favor of the foundation and is willing to help with his own work. - Kenneth believes, that action is better than administration and thinks, that a foundation is only a hurdle. - I am in favor of a foundation and would be willing to help with some funds. I do not fear any commercial TWiki-specialists being involved. I believe that they will know and act in the best interests of the community. They all know exactly, what the difference between their and the communities interest are.

I suggest, that we have a voting here, to find out, who favors what.

-- MartinSeibert - 24 May 2008

If someone want to create a foundation it would be silly and wrong of me to vote against it. But I still believe it will create more trouble than it will solve once someone receives funding from it and someone do not. And if I understand Peter correctly he does not intend to donate the TWiki brand to a foundation because it has a significant commercial value for him. This means that the foundation purpose will strictly be to distribute funding.

So this is not a matter of voting for and against. It is a matter of who will participate in running the foundation and who will contribute funds. It would be extremely silly for any of us to work against such an initiative.

-- KennethLavrsen - 24 May 2008

Kenneth: Good point, that I share. If nobody objects, we can omit voting. Let's wait for a while ...

I would believe that Peter would donate the TWiki brand to a foundation as soon as he would be convinced, that it carries on his principles and values for the TWiki-Community like he does or maybe even better. It should be his decision, when to do it. Maybe it will be months or years. Who cares?

Peter: What do you you think?

-- MartinSeibert - 24 May 2008

I added some thoughts on how funding and the distribution of funds could work.

-- MartinSeibert - 24 May 2008

This does not seem to be a topic of much interest ...

-- MartinSeibert - 31 May 2008

After reading all the thoughts in the comment, iam even more conviced that the TWikiFoundation will help the developers in some really different ways.

I really understand CrawfordCurrie point of of view or better his personal problem, of separating ideas and project for the for-profit organization from the one, which we call "for the whole community". A kind of organisation "Foundation" which could take care of what is the wish of the community or what is best for the project in general is what could help especially for all of us, having non profit ideas for TWiki. So i really appreciate that a lot of developers writing down there opinion here ( being for-profit involved in the manners of TWiki ) are trying to be as much neutral as possible.

I think a second point which TWikiFoundation can help is, defining what is actually what the community wishes. What is the best for the twiki.org open source project. And this is something which will be very hard to accomplish. First of all it will be hard of organizing the votes, the voters and the topics to vote on. But the second, most important thing is, to get the community believe, that this topics, which have been decided to be funded, are really "in the general and most recent use of TWiki as the open source platform. So what will be hard to get is trust and acceptance. And to be honest, thats what i can read between most of the lines i have read in the comments.

To point out my position, i have a similar problem as CrawfordCurrie. I am new to open source at all ( using in for-profit ) and i am new to be in a developer-cummunity for a non-profit open source project like twiki. So i have troubles finding my balance of for-profit and contributing content for twiki and especially, to keep the respect of all the authors of TWiki.

Thats why i am primely interested in TWikiFoundation, a kind of guidance for myself and my ideas for TWiki and inner "skunk".

-- MayerEugen - 01 Jun 2008

I've always been bothered by the power imbalance created by things like trademark, logo and domain ownership, and that caused by simply being a majority contributor.

I think it would be nice to have a Foundation that we could use to create an obvious to separation between concerns, and to make clear the difference between the open source project and those of us working in the comercial area of TWiki.

There is an alternative of course - if TWIKI.NET (or any other TWiki related company) were to decide to become Canonical like, by becoming the majority development and architecture contributor (does anyone know if TWIKI.NET have made any core code bug fixes for 4.2.1? (I ask because I have no idea who TWIKI.NET is employing for this - it is probably not as simple as looking for Peter's contribs)), they they would eventually become the driving force of TWiki. I'd be pretty happy with that - as a company like Canonical would be able to get a lot more done, much faster.

I don't expect TWIKI.NET to spend money in that way - in the same way as I don't expect anyone else to contribute - I'm just awfully pleased when they do.

-- SvenDowideit - 01 Jun 2008

Tp add to the list of other open source projects that started a Fundation, we can add the highly regarded Python web framework Django

-- ColasNahaboo - 18 Jun 2008

Let me sum up my vision.

The TWikiFoundation should be a non-profit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of TWiki.

Note, that anybody - i.e. for-profit entities - is invited to become a member of the TWikiFoundation and contribute to it.

It's main purpose should be to promote, protect and standardize TWiki by providing unified resources and services needed for this open source product to successfully compete with comparative platforms.

The TWikiFoundation itself would not build TWiki, nor does it compete with existing for-profit TWiki companies. It provides a neutral forum for other organizations to collaborate and promote TWiki, comparable to individuals that are able to collaborate right away as things are today, but on an organizational level.

The more companies become member of a TWikiFoundation, the more its neutrality is assured. In any case, no matter who and how many companies join the TWikiFoundation, the TWikiFoundation must serve as a neutral advocate to advance the interests of TWiki on the whole. It should also be the instance to foster collaboration events among TWiki developers, application developers, industry and end users to solve pressing issues facing the TWiki ecosystem in various areas.

Again, that's just a rough outline of what I think that a TWikiFoundation can do.

-- MichaelDaum - 18 Jun 2008

I believe, this is a good summary of my approach also. I agree with Michael.

-- MartinSeibert - 19 Jun 2008

I agree with Michael as well.

-- KwangErnLiew - 27 Jun 2008

We could also call it a TWikiAlliance.

-- MichaelDaum - 01 Jul 2008

It seems, as if a throrough comment or even better "concept" by PeterThoeny is needed here to get things going.

-- MartinSeibert - 07 Jul 2008

Peter's thoughts on this can be found on a different topic:

http://www.twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/TWikiCommunitySummit2008Q1#TWiki_Foundation_Needed_useful_n

-- KoenMartens - 07 Jul 2008

Oh. This is not exactly, what I would have hoped for.

-- MartinSeibert - 07 Jul 2008

This initiative is an opportunity to improve TWiki's future. That's why it needs to be addressed in one or the other way. Peter, it would be great if you could participate in this Codev discussion in a fruitful way.

-- MichaelDaum - 08 Jul 2008

I agree with Michael.

-- MartinSeibert - 12 Jul 2008

I have been bullying people in the past weeks about raising money for TWiki through donations. I will create a document about my ideas on TWikiFundRaising within the next days. I am looking forward to your comments.

-- MartinSeibert - 26 Aug 2008

The TWikiFoundation idea is still viable. Surely, the trademark question is out. It remains in Peter's hands. Let's relieve our minds from that critical question and move on.

The ongoing discussion to restructure the community shows that we can only benefit from a more formal body for TWiki. TWikiDotNet or just Peter all alone, can't fulfill this role.

For instance, Motorola constantly supports the TWikiCommunity via Kenneth but gets considerably low recognition for it. There are other companies in the background that support TWiki substantially without getting an appropriate acknowledgment for it.

I consider the KDE e.V. as a good template how to construct a TWikiFoundation. Please, have a look at their member program and their quarterly reports to get an idea of what they do.

From what I see now, with enough funds, we will be able to organize, arrange and broaden our community activities, like TWikiCommunitySummits and TWikiMeetUps, in a more professional way. Funds can also be requested for by individual task teams. Martin will outline that in more detail on TWikiFundRaising.

-- MichaelDaum - 29 Aug 2008

I am just working on this document (TWikiFundRaising) at the moment. In my opinion, no other people but programmers shall be eligible to get funds.

-- MartinSeibert - 31 Aug 2008

The concept for a fund-raising association is documented now. Please help with your comment: TWikiFundRaising

-- MartinSeibert - 31 Aug 2008