Sunday 15 September 2013

Non-Profit Centers for FLOSS Development

Bradley M. Kuhn

Sunday 15 September 2013

My History

In a CS PhD program at University of Cincinnati (1997-2000). Dropped out with a Master’s to do policy work for Free Software Foundation (on its Board these days). Worked at various non-profits. Now I run a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor non-profit, called Software Freedom Conservancy. ●I’m not a researcher; I’m a policy wonk & software freedom advocate. ●No, I didn’t do a study to come to my policy conclusions.

A Brief Non-Profit Free Software History

1984-09-27: GNU Manifesto. ●RMS wrote in that GNU Manifesto: ●“All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax” ●“People with new ideas could distribute programs as [free software], asking for donations from satisfied users” A non-profit model for the community was planned from the start.

Some FSF History

FSF is founded in 1984. Gets 501(c)(3) status in 1985. ●FSF’s first 12 years is mostly to employ developers! ●46% of FSF’s history. ●Some of the key developers who now lead many of the largest Free Software projects. ●(Source: GNU’s Bulletins 1986-1997)

The Rise of the Volunteers

●Most Free Software is written by volunteers … ●… who are only such from the point of view of the projects. ●The volunteers are usually paid for by for-profits ●Red Hat, Google, IBM, etc.

The Rise of “Open Source”

Open Source, that thing most of you study, is just a business phenomena. ●It’s a concept specifically designed as an amoral alternative to software freedom politics. ●see Evgeny Morozov’s article, The Meme Hustler For-profit companies always prefer the amoral. ●I’d love to see the areas of academics that relate most to software freedom engaged: ●Political Science ●Philosophy

For-Profit vs. Non-Profit

For-profits act in interest in shareholders. 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. NPOs can accept for-profit donations, but provide a firewall.

For-Profit-Employee “Volunteers”

●Most code written by for-profit employees. ●20% time is a boon to software freedom. ●But codebases drift in directions of company’s needs. ●Some developers should be funded by non-profits, ●to mitigate dangers of for-profit control.

It’s the duty of all Free Software developers to steal as much time as they can from their employers for software freedom. — Jeremy Allison, Director, Conservancy & Co-Founder, Samba Project

What Can NPOs Do?

●Collect (USA-tax-deductible) donations for a project. ●both individual and corporate. Distribute that money to advance project (and public good). Make sure project isn’t controlled by for-profit interests. Help leadership with non-technical decisions.

Why Do We Need Non-Profits?

●What’s wrong with for-profits? ●that duty to shareholders gets in the way. ●at best, business interest merely accelerates pace. ●at worst, it distorts the community into trade-association thinking. Only non-profits can view community, sharing, helping, and learning as paramount. ●True control by for-profit companies will kill the gravy train. ●No, I can’t prove that with data. ●But ∃ plenty of anecdotes & … ●… my 20 years of intuition, FWIW.

Quick Analogy

●Which, I admit, is perhaps a pathetically thin pretext to put a photo of my dogs in this presentation.

The Pet Industry

●For-profit companies abound … ●pet food, veterinarian clinics, pet stores. ●Some have non-profit equivalents, but why? ●pet stores historically biggest puppy mill purchasers. ●non-profit shelters & rescues provide morally centered method for pet acquisition.

●For-profit companies adapt: ●donate pet food to shelters. ●host pet adoption events at pet stores. ●Puppy mills would be norm w/out NPOs. ●& proprietary software exploitation’d be norm w/out healthy Free Software NPOs.

A Very Few Words On Licensing

My actual GPL talk is Tuesday at 17:10 in Celestin C. ●But, given I’ve done more GPL enforcement than anyone on the planet … ●I should probably say at least one thing about GPL compliance, which is: ●License compliance is trivial if you make nothing proprietary & do all you work upstream. ●… which is the ethical & moral thing to do, anyway. ●… so just do that & never worry about compliance problems again.

More Info / Talk License

●URLs / Social Networking / Email: ●Conservancy: sfconservancy.org & @conservancy ●Me: faif.us, ebb.org/bkuhn & @bkuhn (pump.io clients only) ●Slides at: ebb.org/bkuhn/talks & gitorious.org/bkuhn/talks (source) ●Please donate: sfconservancy.org/donate/ or Conservancy’s projects’ sites. Presentation and slides are: Copyright © 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 Bradley M. Kuhn, and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-By-SA) 3.0 United States License.

Some images included herein are ©’ed by others. I believe my use of those images is fair use under USA © law. However, I suggest you remove such images if you redistribute these slides under CC-By-SA-USA 3.0.