[ZF] Review of Foundation goals

[Tres Seaver]

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Per the existing ZF by-laws:

> The purpose of Zope Foundation, Inc. (the “Zope Foundation”), is to 
> advance the creation, evolution, promotion, adoption and support of
> the ZopemPlatform and to cultivate both an open source community and an
> ecosystem of complementary products, capabilities, and services. The
> Zope Foundation may solicit, receive and maintain, invest and re-invest
> funds of real and personal property and to contribute its income and so
> much of the principal, in and as deemed advisable for the purposes
> above. The Zope Foundation may pursue interests in publishing
> and education to the extent these activities support the Zope
> Platform.

For comparison, the PSF's mission statement[1] says:

> The Python Software Foundation (PSF) is a non-profit membership
> organization devoted to advancing open source technology related to the
> Python programming language. It qualifies under the US Internal Revenue
> Code as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) scientific and educational public
> charity, and conducts its business according to the rules for such
> organizations.

and then lists a set of activities which serve that purpose.


A quick summary of the PSF polity, as defined in the PSF bylaws[2]:

 - They have two classes of membership, basically committers and
   everyone else ("sponsor members").[3]

 - Sponsor members have no special privileges, except that they pay a
   fee and get a link on the sponsrs  page,[4]

 - Another class, "emeritus members," cannot vote.[3]

 - New members must be nominated by an existing member, and approved
   by a majority of the existing members at the annual meeting.[2], [3]

 - The board has two main responsibilities[5]:

   o Regular/adminstrative tasks to keep the PSF's legal standing
     healthy, and to respond to things like requests to use trademarks
     or questions about the licensing of Python.

   o Special projects.




[1] "PSF Mission Statement Page",
    http://www.python.org/psf/mission/

[2] "PSF Bylaws",
     http://www.python.org/psf/bylaws

[3] "PSF Membership FAQ",
    http://www.python.org/psf/membership/

[4] "PSF Sponsor Memberships",
     http://www.python.org/psf/sponsorship/

[5] "Duties & Responsibiliities of PSF Directors",

http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonSoftwareFoundation/DutiesAndResponsibilitiesOfDirectors



Tres.
- --
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Tres Seaver          +1 540-429-0999          tseaver at palladion.com
Palladion Software   "Excellence by Design"    http://palladion.com
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