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FOSS Foundations Directory

This site is meant to be high-level resource for anyone interested in FOSS project governance, especially those hosted at non-profit foundations or similar organizations. Along with some introductory info - mainly pointers to existing “what is FOSS” websites out there! - it will also include a rich metadata directory of major FOSS non-profits. This resource is meant to be collaborative, and of use to researchers, project leaders, and anyone interested in sustainability.

Version 0.1 plans

  • Overview homepage - what is this project.
  • Resources page - point to the key resources already out there about governance, sustainability, and other non-technical open source concepts.
  • /listing/ directory - a friendly listing of all FOSS Foundations in our dataset, with simple categorization/sorting/search features.
  • /_foundations_/ directory - metadata about foundations, as YAML/JSON files, one per foundation, like: fsf.yaml
  • Basic build/lint tooling
  • Provide auto-build of alternate formats (like .csv out of .yaml)
  • Get feedback to build version 0.2 plans!

Example 

require 'yaml'
require 'open-uri'
# Future plans: have more stable programmatic URL and listing features; offer CSV and other formats
asf = YAML.load(URI.open("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Punderthings/fossfoundation/main/_foundations/asf.md"))
puts asf['legalName']

Tasks

  • Organize homepage & sketch nav structure -sc
  • Resources page - sc (started)
  • Colophon - sc
  • CONTRIBUTING - details of how, why, what
  • Tweak theme / logo?
  • Metadata schema (format?) -sc (‘good-enough’ level)
  • csv2yaml converter & checkin data -sc
  • /listing/ directory page: name/url, nonprofitStatus / taxID, accepts new projects, description? boardType? other?
  • Individual foundation data page, with all fields, read from schema
  • Category lists of foundations
  • Metadata search page
  • Connections to other metadata directories & more /resources
  • Automated linting
  • Semi-automated data format conversion (i.e. auto-create foundations.csv upon any update to a .md file)
  • Setup AllContributors bot and encourage contributions
  • Find volunteers to add new foundations and fillin metadata
  • Verify data format / inclusion criteria are useful for academic research

Site Governance

This site is maintained by Shane Curcuru, with the intention of attracting contributors and co-maintainers who are interested in helping FOSS foundations, projects who might want to come to foundations, and academic researchers alike. The long-term plan is to build a community of equal maintainers to ensure site longevity. Read the Colophon for how this site is built.