How does SPI differ from SFC?

Hi all.

First off: I hope that I managed to choose the right platform for my
inquiry ;) In case I failed, please accept my appologies in advance and
let me know who I should contact instead. Thanks.

I'm one of the guys behind the MadWifi project [1]. We intend to
incorporate as a non-profit now. Joining a non-profit umbrella such as the
SPI or the SFC (Software Freedom Conservancy [2]) for that purpose is very
appealing for us; we are all technical guys and we're thankful for every
administrative task that we don't need to take care of.

As far as I could find out by now, it seems to me that SPI and SFC offer
pretty similar services to its members. One difference I can see is the
option to accept (tax-deductible?) donations through partners in Germany,
Italy and Canada (on SPI's side), while SFC so far "only" has accounts in
the US. Are there other important differences that I might have missed?

What "unique selling point(s)" do you see for SPI in comparisson to the SFC?

Bye, Mike

[1] http://madwifi.org
[2] http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org

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Michael Renzmann wrote:
> Hi all.
>
> First off: I hope that I managed to choose the right platform for my
> inquiry ;) In case I failed, please accept my appologies in advance and
> let me know who I should contact instead. Thanks.
>
>
> I'm one of the guys behind the MadWifi project [1]. We intend to
> incorporate as a non-profit now. Joining a non-profit umbrella such as the
> SPI or the SFC (Software Freedom Conservancy [2]) for that purpose is very
> appealing for us; we are all technical guys and we're thankful for every
> administrative task that we don't need to take care of.
>
> As far as I could find out by now, it seems to me that SPI and SFC offer
> pretty similar services to its members. One difference I can see is the
> option to accept (tax-deductible?) donations through partners in Germany,
> Italy and Canada (on SPI's side), while SFC so far "only" has accounts in
> the US. Are there other important differences that I might have missed?

I won't argue against SFC as they are only trying to do what we are
trying to do, which is to help FOSS sofware projects. What I will due is
point out our particular strengths.

* SPI has been around a long time. We have taken our lumps and have
learned and are continuing to learn from them.

* We have an active board that is continually looking for ways to help
our affiliated projects.

* We have some of the largest and well known FOSS software projects in
the world as affiliated projects (Debian, PostgreSQL, OpenOffice.Org,
FreeDesktop.org).

* The board conducts all non-confidential business on our -private list
for our contributing members to see and participate.

Please feel free to ask any specific questions.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake
Director and SPI PostgreSQL Liaison

>
> What "unique selling point(s)" do you see for SPI in comparisson to the SFC?
>
> Bye, Mike
>
> [1] http://madwifi.org
> [2] http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-general mailing list
> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general

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On Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 08:55:14AM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> I won't argue against SFC as they are only trying to do what we are
> trying to do, which is to help FOSS sofware projects. What I will due is
> point out our particular strengths.

Just for a slight bit of balance, I will point out that SFC seems
primarily connected to the Software Freedom Law Center meaning that they
likely have several lawyers available as resources. That said, we do
have one pro bono lawyer working with us as well. If you think you will
have significant requirements for legal advice or legal work (e.g. the
recent news surrounding BusyBox), and that this will be more important
than money and donation management, SFC probably has advantages, though
SPI can still satisfy all those needs as well. If your legal needs are
secondary to your money and donation management needs, including having
tax-deductible donation partners in some European countries as you've
noticed, SPI seems to be a good fit. You can't really go wrong with
either option. I have more familiarity with SPI (see my signature below)
and so my comments about SPI should be considered as more reliable than
my comments about SFC.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz, former SPI director and treasurer
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

"Michael Renzmann" <mrenzmann(at)madwifi(dot)org> wrote: [...]
> As far as I could find out by now, it seems to me that SPI and SFC offer
> pretty similar services to its members. One difference I can see is the
> option to accept (tax-deductible?) donations through partners in Germany,
> Italy and Canada (on SPI's side), while SFC so far "only" has accounts in
> the US. Are there other important differences that I might have missed?

I'm not sure, but SFC's pumping of itself as a liability protection
makes it sound like they have taken out insurance, although I can't
find any details of it. On the other hand, they might just be
describing the nature of a corporation. I'd ask about that if I were
you, especially with a project like madwifi which seems riskier than
most, to see if there is a real difference there.

I think it's a little disappointing that the SFC web site is under a
non-free-software licence, with anti-commercial no-derivs terms
(although now I notice that SPI's web site copyright terms appear to
be missing, at least since the last redesign... oops?).

> What "unique selling point(s)" do you see for SPI in comparisson to the SFC?

I feel SPI compares well with SFC, which appears to be tied to the
SFLC, self-perpetuating and has published only news releases so far:
no details of board discussions. Instead, SPI is autonomous,
member-controlled and has a proven track record of making its
proceedings public, through news releases, minutes and annual reports,
as well as giving greater detail to members.

Competition is healthy, but why did SFLC start the SFC?
The stated reason "to provide free financial and administrative
services for a collection of FOSS projects through a single entity"
seems bogus: SPI already provided that. What is SFC's USP?

Disclosure: I'm a contributing member of SPI and a rejected board
candidate. I have no involvement in SFC that I'm aware of.

Best wishes,
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Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
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On Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 06:39:36PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> I think it's a little disappointing that the SFC web site is under a
> non-free-software licence, with anti-commercial no-derivs terms
> (although now I notice that SPI's web site copyright terms appear to
> be missing, at least since the last redesign... oops?).

To be fair, the old web site didn't mention a license either, AFAICT.

--
2. That which causes joy or happiness.

Hi Joshua.

Thanks for your fast response (same goes to the other people who replied,
too).

> Please feel free to ask any specific questions.

Maybe the most important question is: does the MadWifi project qualify as
member of the SPI at all?

Some background about our activity is provided at [1] and specifically at
[2].

Our best known "product" so far is MadWifi, a Linux kernel driver for WLAN
devices with Atheros chipsets. While the driver itself is entirely free
(it's distributed dual-licensed, three-clause BSD and GPLv2) it depends on
a piece of code that is distributed in binary form only and under a
proprietary license. This binary part is called "HAL" (short for "Hardware
Abstraction Layer") and is required to talk to the Atheros hardware.
Details about why the HAL is distributed in binary-only form is provided
on [3].

However, we recently decided to take a different path [4] and started
another driver, ath5k, which in the long run will replace MadWifi. The
goal is to provide a driver for Atheros devices that is entirely
open-sourced and does no longer depend on the binary HAL part. But it will
take a good amount of time until we are there; during that time MadWifi
will not be actively developed, but it will still receive support and bug
fixes.

Hence the question: does the existence (and the ongoing support) of
MadWifi (the driver) cause any problems regarding a possible SPI
membership?

Bye, Mike

[1] http://madwifi.org/wiki/About
[2] http://madwifi.org/wiki/About/TheProject
[3] http://madwifi.org/wiki/About/HAL
[4]
http://madwifi.org/wiki/news/20070920/madwifi-moves-away-from-binary-only-hal

Hi.

> I'm not sure, but SFC's pumping of itself as a liability protection
> makes it sound like they have taken out insurance, although I can't
> find any details of it. On the other hand, they might just be
> describing the nature of a corporation.

Can you please explain the meaning of the above two sentences a bit more?
I fear I fail to comprehend its meaning - please bear with me, I'm no
native english speaker :)

Bye, Mike

On Fri, 2007-09-28 at 08:21 +0200, Michael Renzmann wrote:

> Maybe the most important question is: does the MadWifi project qualify as
> member of the SPI at all?

Yes, I think it does.

> Hence the question: does the existence (and the ongoing support) of
> MadWifi (the driver) cause any problems regarding a possible SPI
> membership?

I do not see any problem with that.

Even if you were only planning to continue to support the open-source
wrapper around the HAL-blob, I believe we would be willing to at least
consider a proposal for treating you as an associated project. Given
your stated objective of replacing the blob with a true open source
driver, I look forward to reviewing a proposal.

Regards,

Bdale

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Michael Renzmann wrote:
> Hi.
>
>> I'm not sure, but SFC's pumping of itself as a liability protection
>> makes it sound like they have taken out insurance, although I can't
>> find any details of it. On the other hand, they might just be
>> describing the nature of a corporation.
>
> Can you please explain the meaning of the above two sentences a bit more?
> I fear I fail to comprehend its meaning - please bear with me, I'm no
> native english speaker :)

A Corporation, by law provides a specific level of liability protection
to the share holders. This is where the term "Corporate Veil" comes
from. Basically the Corporation does something bad, the Corporation is
punished and not the share holders (there are exceptions but that is the
gist).

Secondarily, there is Corporate insurance. Often called Error and
Omission insurance. The purpose of this is just like Car insurance. If
you make a mistake, and blow away someone's database. They can sue you.

If you have insurance, the insurance pays. If you don't. The company
does. If the company doesn't... well that is badness.

Joshua D. Drake

>
> Bye, Mike
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-general mailing list
> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general

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"Michael Renzmann" <mrenzmann(at)madwifi(dot)org> wrote:
> > I'm not sure, but SFC's pumping of itself as a liability protection
> > makes it sound like they have taken out insurance, although I can't
> > find any details of it. On the other hand, they might just be
> > describing the nature of a corporation.
>
> Can you please explain the meaning of the above two sentences a bit more?

SFC's web site says http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/

"These benefits include, most notably, protection from personal
liability for project developers."

This sounds to me like SFC might have bought the indemnity insurance
that has been suggested to SPI a few times, but dismissed as too
expensive or not desirable. Alternatively, SFC might just be
describing the protection of having a corporation responsible, which
SPI also has.

Josip Rodin <joy(at)entuzijast(dot)net> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 06:39:36PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> > (although now I notice that SPI's web site copyright terms appear to
> > be missing, at least since the last redesign... oops?).
>
> To be fair, the old web site didn't mention a license either, AFAICT.

I meant that I hadn't checked the old web site, not that it vanished.

Hope that explains,
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Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -
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Hi.

Sorry for my late reply on this subject, and thanks again for all the
quick and detailed responses.

Meanwhile I've posted a summary [1] of the outcome of my investigation
about the differences between SPI and SFC, mostly based on the information
I got from you all in this thread. My personal preference would be to join
the SPI for incorporating as non-profit, then becoming a so called client
to the SFLC. Details on why I think this way are given in the mentioned
post.

Now a valid question was raised, and I would like to pass it on to you:
from your point of view, "[...] are there any conflict of interest issues
to have this type of relationship with both organizations?"

Bye, Mike

[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.drivers.madwifi.devel/5188

On Fri, 2007-10-19 at 10:03 +0200, Michael Renzmann wrote:

> Now a valid question was raised, and I would like to pass it on to you:
> from your point of view, "[...] are there any conflict of interest issues
> to have this type of relationship with both organizations?"

I don't personally think there is any conflict of interest if a project
wants to be both an SPI associated project and a client of the SFLC at
the same time.

Bdale

On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 10:03:33 +0200 (CEST)
"Michael Renzmann" <mrenzmann(at)madwifi(dot)org> wrote:

> Hi.
>
> Sorry for my late reply on this subject, and thanks again for all the
> quick and detailed responses.
>
> Meanwhile I've posted a summary [1] of the outcome of my investigation
> about the differences between SPI and SFC, mostly based on the
> information I got from you all in this thread. My personal preference
> would be to join the SPI for incorporating as non-profit, then
> becoming a so called client to the SFLC. Details on why I think this
> way are given in the mentioned post.
>
> Now a valid question was raised, and I would like to pass it on to
> you: from your point of view, "[...] are there any conflict of
> interest issues to have this type of relationship with both
> organizations?"

That is an interesting question. I can't think of any problems off
hand. Bdale?

Joshua D. Drake

>
> Bye, Mike
>
> [1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.drivers.madwifi.devel/5188
>

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On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 10:03:33 +0200 (CEST)
"Michael Renzmann" <mrenzmann(at)madwifi(dot)org> wrote:

> Hi.
>
> Sorry for my late reply on this subject, and thanks again for all the
> quick and detailed responses.
>
> Meanwhile I've posted a summary [1] of the outcome of my investigation
> about the differences between SPI and SFC, mostly based on the
> information I got from you all in this thread. My personal preference
> would be to join the SPI for incorporating as non-profit, then
> becoming a so called client to the SFLC. Details on why I think this
> way are given in the mentioned post.
>
> Now a valid question was raised, and I would like to pass it on to
> you: from your point of view, "[...] are there any conflict of
> interest issues to have this type of relationship with both
> organizations?"

I spoke with the SFLC today. Although it is possible for you to be
associated with SPI and SLFC at the same time. It is not possible for
you to be associated with the SFC and SPI at the same time.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

>
> Bye, Mike
>
> [1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.drivers.madwifi.devel/5188
>

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Hi.

> I spoke with the SFLC today. Although it is possible for you to be
> associated with SPI and SLFC at the same time. It is not possible for
> you to be associated with the SFC and SPI at the same time.

No surprise about the second, and thanks for the first :)

Bye, Mike

"Joshua D. Drake" <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:
> I spoke with the SFLC today. Although it is possible for you to be
> associated with SPI and SLFC at the same time. It is not possible for
> you to be associated with the SFC and SPI at the same time.

Why not? Do SFC insist on holding all assets for a project, or is
there some other reason not to co-operate?

Regards,
--
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On Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:12:50 +0100
MJ Ray <mjr(at)phonecoop(dot)coop> wrote:

> "Joshua D. Drake" <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:
> > I spoke with the SFLC today. Although it is possible for you to be
> > associated with SPI and SLFC at the same time. It is not possible
> > for you to be associated with the SFC and SPI at the same time.
>
> Why not? Do SFC insist on holding all assets for a project, or is
> there some other reason not to co-operate?
>

It has to do with tax exemption. There is nothing stopping Madwifi from
"working with sfc" and "working with spi".

However, when you are "affiliated" with SPI, you are claiming our Tax
exempt status. There can only be "one" of those.

Joshua D. Drake

> Regards,

--

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