Conservancy as potential home for OPW (was Re: Mission Statement)

["Bradley M. Kuhn" <bkuhn ebb org>]

[ I want to be clear that I'm here primarily as an individual member of
  the GNOME Foundation.  However, this particular post is primarily on
  behalf on Conservancy -- since Oliver called out Conservancy
  explicitly as a possible home for OPW.  I'm the President, on the
  Board of Directors, and an employee of Conservancy. ]

Oliver Propst wrote at 05:58 (EDT):
> I know an organization [1] that have administrative and legal
> expertise, maybe they would be interested in govern the program?
>
> 1 https://sfconservancy.org/overview/

Conservancy would of course welcome an application by OPW to join
Conservancy, and Oliver is correct that Conservancy's primary daily
activities are handling the types of administrative tasks that GF has
struggled to handle for OPW.

OPW is somewhat different from our usual member project, which are
primarily Free Software projects themselves.  However, Conservancy has
established in the past some projects that are primarily services to
advance and/or protect the adoption of Free Software.  Thus, an OPW
application to Conservancy is not unprecedented.  Conservancy's
evaluation committee would need to consider OPW as an applicant to
Conservancy and decide.  (Conservancy's eval committee meets monthly.)

However, one useful component of any application from a project with an
existing affiliation to a Free Software 501(c)(3) non-profit is a
definitive statement from the governing body of that non-profit (in this
case, likely, from GF's Board) which indicates the existing org has no
objection to the application.  Particularly in this case, Conservancy
has an excellent relationship with GF; thus, Conservancy would certainly
seek a joint decision for a relocation of OPW to Conservancy.

If this change is really something GF wants to pursue and Conservancy
can make an impact here helping OPW flourish, I'm prepared personally to
prioritize such a transition to make sure it's smooth and easy.

Máirín Duffy wrote at 12:55 (EDT) on Wednesday:
> > Red Hat and the Software Freedom Conservancy are funding Marina and
> > Karen's time spent on administering it respectively

Regardless of anything that happens about the issue raised above,
Conservancy remains very supportive of OPW.  Conservancy's employment
policy in fact allows use of some resources to do some volunteer work
for other charities.  I use that to do volunteer work for the FSF
myself, and Karen has done so to help OPW and GF, so I don't expect
Karen will cease involvement with OPW in any event.  (IIUC, Karen also
volunteers further on nights/weekends for OPW and GF as well.)

Finally, I personally remain very supportive of OPW.  I've been urging
existing Conservancy member projects for years to participate more in
OPW.  Sadly, I haven't been as successful as I'd like, but both Karen
and I actively have been working on that since she came to work at
Conservancy, and hopefully we'll see more Conservancy member projects
sponsoring OPW slots in the future!
-- 
Bradley M. Kuhn
President & Distinguished Technologist of Software Freedom Conservancy