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Debian Project -- What is the difference between a Project and a proper Association?

Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Mar 11, 2023

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A project starts with a plan and finishes with a product or outcome. Projects are transient in nature. Therefore, being part of a project team also implies a somewhat transient status.

When you consider the quantity and quality of the work and intellectual property that volunteers contribute to Debian and Fedora, this inferior and transient status is somewhat insulting.

This inconvenient vocabulary is no accident. Every time there is an election for the Debian Project Leader, somebody raises the idea of creating a proper Debian foundation or a Debian association. In other words, creating a body with its own legal status where all the volunteers have a status as equal members. In the 2022 election, Christian Kastner raised the topic here.

In reality, all of the money and other assets associated with Debian development have been siphoned off into other legal entities. They are described as "trusted organizations" and there is a list of them on the Debian wiki site. Each of these organizations puts out an obscure financial report from time to time.

In 2023, we will be celebrating 30 years of the Debian Project. To put it in the terminology of the Afghan war, Debian and Fedora are forever-projects, like forever-wars, that seem to be losing their way. The Debian Social Contract gives us promises of transparency but in 30 years, we have never seen anybody publish a consolidated set of Debian financial accounts.

Read on

↺ Read On: Debian 'Project'

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