Research Topics
Welcome researchers! We are actively looking for collaborators to turn this metadata repository into a key resource for research around open source/FOSS related communities, code, and organizations. Many existing research studies simply consider projects or communities individually, not (as they so often are) part of a larger community or foundation with specific IP, trademark, development, or community processes or expectations. This is a rich area for research to consider when looking at outcomes along any axis of FOSS project trajectories.
New Research Methods - Organizational Impacts
Most studies on FOSS product outcomes or community trajectories focus on specific projects individually, perhaps bucketing populations by some discoverable variable based on individual GitHub repos. This style of research misses a vast amount of key variables related to higher level organizations within the FOSS ecosystem. Using this FOSS Foundation metadata to subset research populations opens up entirely new lines of comparative research around governance style, community ethos, IP & trademark policies, and use of CLAs vs DCO or other inbound licensing schemes.
Current Metadata Available
While the current Foundation directory only includes a subset of all FOSS-related nonprofit organizations, it does cover the vast majority of US and EU hosting organizations that affect FOSS projects directly. The existing dataset covers each of the major project hosts in the ASF, LF, Software Freedom Conservancy, NumFOCUS, SPI, Inc., and a number of language- or distro-specific foundations.
- What aspects of Foundations affect projects the most? We currently cover IP policy basics, Code Of Conduct listings (or not), board size and governance factors, and a variety of sponsorship and budget data.
- Are there cultural norms at host Foundations that change project outcomes, or are differences in Foundations more easily quantifiable like by license choice or the like?
- How can we discover other key Foundation factors that might impact projects?
- What common factors are there in non-Foundation hosted projects (i.e. independent projects) that make them different from Foundation-hosted projects?
All of these and many more are new fields for researchers to explore! Let us know your interests and how we can collaborate on data design and storage for these factors.
Site-Specific Research Needs
FOSS Foundations are not the only organizations that matter in the software ecosystem. Here are a few other areas we’re interested in researching. This is an open source project that relies on contributors like you to help!
Jump to: Foundations To Research, Corporate FOSS Contributor FundsFoundations To Research
There are a number of other interesting FOSS legal organizations we'd like help adding to the directory.| commonName | website | addressCountry | addressRegion | nonprofitStatus | description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Center for Cultivation of Technology | https://www.techcultivation.org | DE | HRB 180673 | Services host for opensource groups | |
| Stichting The Commons Conservancy | https://commonsconservancy.org | NL | 67115918 | ||
| Foundation For Public Code | https://publiccode.net | NL | registration 74996452 and identification number (RSIN) 860102294 | Dutch Vereniging | |
| Free and Open Source Silicon Foundation C.I.C. | https://www.fossi-foundation.org | UK | 09848956 | United Kingdom not-for-profit limited by guarantee | |
| Free Knowledge Insititue | http://freeknowledge.eu/ | NL | 34288702 | Dutch Stichting | |
| Krita Foundation | https://krita.org/en/about/krita-foundation/ | NL | 56592574 | Stichting Krita Foundation | |
| NLNet Foundation | https://nlnet.nl | NL | 41208365 | Netherlands ANBI | |
| NLNet Labs Foundation | https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/organisation/ | NL | 34126276 | Netherlands ANBI | |
| OASIS Open Europe | https://www.oasis-open.eu | NL | 81197403 | Dutch Stichting | |
| Open Doc Society | http://www.opendocsociety.org/ | NL | Not found in lookup | Dutch Stichting | Dead: web host not responding? |
| Open Search Foundation e.V. | https://opensearchfoundation.org/en/open-search-foundation-home/ | DE | Munich VR 208036. | German e.V. | |
| OpenUK | https://openuk.uk | UK | 11209475 | United Kingdom not-for-profit limited by guarantee | |
| OW2 | https://www.ow2.org | FR | French 1901 Non-profit Association | ||
| PostgreSQL Europe | https://postgresql.eu | FR | French 1901 Non-profit Association | ||
| R Foundation | https://www.r-project.org/foundation/ | AU | Lookup costs a fee | Austrian non-profit association (Verein) | |
| Hack Club | https://hackclub.com/ | US | CA | c3 EIN 81-2908499 | Focus on high schools, teens, and hackathons, but lots of fiscal hosting |
| PHP Foundation | https://thephp.foundation/foundation/ | US | How should we model well-organized projects with boards (etc) that aren't legal entities at all? They're a collective at OC. | ||
| Prototype Fund | https://prototypefund.de/en/ | DE | German-only applications for grants to open source (funder org primarily) | ||
| Godot Foundation | https://godot.foundation/ | NL | Stichting Godot Kvk 87351919 | ||
| Spritely Networked Communities Institute | https://spritely.institute/ | US | DE | c3 EIN 87-4257919 | Home of the Spritely Goblins Distributed Programming platform - the core of our vision of a completely decentralised social internet |
| Open Charge Alliance | https://openchargealliance.org/ | NL | Strawinskylaan 411, 1077 XX Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Dutch Chamber of Commerce no. 59720352 | Our mission is to foster global development, adoption, and compliance of communication protocols in the EV charging infrastructure and related standards through collaboration, education, testing, and certification. | |
| Code for Science & Society | https://www.codeforsociety.org/ | US | OR | EIN 81-3791683 | Focus on programs centered on social infrastructure in research and technology |
| Endless Network Inc | https://www.endlessos.org/ | US | CT | EIN 37-1967864 501c4 | Create equity in learning. |