[beyond-licensing] Principles and practices

[Patrick Masson]

All,

Following up on my previous note, related to assessment of organizations
based on maturity and causality, I wanted to share what the OSI is
currently doing related to our Affiliate Membership program.

The Affiliate program is for non-profits, government agencies and
educational institutions. In order for us to assess if these groups are
"unequivocally independent groups with a clear commitment to open source"
we've developed some criteria for membership (
https://opensource.org/AffiliateRequirements).

To qualify, applicants must provide evidence that they meet these criteria,
in a sense, that they share these principles and have practices that
demonstrate such. For example, a principle of "transparency" could be
derived from our requirement, "Documented approach for participation by the
public." And the applicants, evidence of the use of mailing lists, IRC,
GitHub shows that they are engaged in practices that provide transparency.

Below is a recent exchange with an Affiliate Member applicant. I think our
approach could serve to further inform our discussions on this list.

Thanks,
Patrick


---------

Thank you very much for submitting an Affiliate Agreement. I wanted to go
over the Affiliate Member qualifications to make sure I have everything
right before I submit OCA's application to the Board for review. Let me
know if what I have is OK, or if you have other references that would be
better to cite.

   1. *Currently recognized as a (or application submitted for) non-profit
   / not-for-profit (or equivalent) by the national government were organized.*
   OCA's non-profit status is stated on the home page, (
   https://odoo-community.org/) and in the footer of each web page, "The
   Odoo Community Association, or OCA, is a nonprofit organization..." The OCS
   by-laws (https://odoo-community.org/page/Bylaws) also state, "'Odoo
   Community Association' hereafter 'OCA' or 'Association' is a non-profit
   association governed by the present statutes and, secondarily, by Articles
   60 et seq. of the Swiss Civil Code. It is neutral politically, and
   non-denominational."
   *Can you point me to any documentation for this? For example, in the
   U.S. the OSI would produce our IRS tax status and California Secretary of
   State certification / filings.*

   2. *Mission statement describing purpose and goals.*
   "Establish and support an Open Source and collaborative community for
   the development and promotion of the Odoo features and modules." -
   https://odoo-community.org/page/About

   3. *Documentation formalizing organization, e.g. by-laws.*
   OCA by-laws available at: https://odoo-community.org/page/Bylaws

   4. *Publicly available release of a product(s) or service(s).*
   OCA supports a variety of projects:
      - Odoo enterprise management suite (https://www.odoo.com/page/download,
      source, https://github.com/odoo/odoo)
      - Odoo Community Association (OCA) Apps (
      https://www.odoo.com/apps/modules?author=Odoo%20Community%20Association%20%28OCA%29
      )

      5. *Use of an OSI approved open source license (software development
   projects only).*
      - Odoo is distributed under the GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE,
      Version 3 (https://github.com/odoo/odoo/blob/9.0/LICENSE)
      - Odoo Community Association Apps are distributed under open source
      licenses as described at https://odoo-community.org/page/faq, " The
      association only accepts projects that use OSI-certified
licenses for their
      software. The association also discourages a proliferation of new and
      incompatible licenses. We recommend you to choose one of those licenses :
      AGPLv3, LGPLv3 or GPLv3."

      6. *Documented approach for participation by the public.*
      - OCA provides a variety of opportunities for participation and
      offers detailed assistance for on-boarding:
      https://odoo-community.org/page/Contribute
      - Memberships are available:
      https://odoo-community.org/page/Membership

      7. *An active community: *
      1. Methods for current and interested individuals/organizations to
      join and participate in your community
   - Events (https://odoo-community.org/event), Mailing lists (
      https://www.odoo.com/page/odoo-community), IRC (irc://freenode/OCA),
      GitHub (https://github.com/oca), and others:
      https://odoo-community.org/page/Contribute
      1. Active participation from multiple contributors, i.e. individuals
      and organizations other than founders (contributions may be other than
      programming/technology)
   - 163 OCA Members (https://odoo-community.org/members)
      - 3 Sponsors (https://odoo-community.org/partners)
      - 30 GitHub contributors (https://github.com/orgs/OCA/people)
      - 7 Transifex administrators (https://www.transifex.com/oca/public/)
      - and others (https://odoo-community.org/page/Contribute)

      8. *References from other open source projects, ideally a current OSI
   Affiliate Member.*
   *Do you have any references for us?*

*Criteria*

   1. OSI Agreement has been signed and submitted.
   *Received*
   2. Cover letter including
      1. interest in Affiliation;
      *Outstanding*, can you please provide us with a brief explanation of
      why OCA would like to join? We often use this as part of our
press release
      announcing our new affiliates.
      2. proof of qualification.
      *Underway*


Thanks,
Patrick

  ||  |   | || |  ||  ||  | || |  |||  |  |||
* Patrick Masson*
*General Manager & Director, Open Source Initiative*
855 El Camino Real, Ste 13A, #270
Palo Alto, CA 94301
United States
Office: (415) 857-5398
Mobile: (970) 4MASSON
Email: massson at opensource.org
Website: www.opensource.org
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