Notices by Shane Curcuru (shanecurcuru@fosstodon.org)

Anyone have a list of the many definitions of "maintainer"?

Is there any better place to start looking than here?

https://fossgovernance.org/

@mattdm @clacke

ASF Model: contributors become committers. Committers can get elected to PMC, which then gives them a vote in governance over releases and future committers on that project. I.e. a project that includes new contributors in actual governance. "Maintainers" is an overloaded word, for sure.

And yes: nonprofits can be evil just like for-profits; however it tends in some ways to be harder, since they're not exposed to as many "chase the money" ideas as for-profit usually is.

@mattdm

How so? Or rather: what are you getting at, since I'm not following.

Reference: https://apache.org/foundation/marks/responsibility

@mattdm

Iceweasel has zero to do with the ASF, so not a useful example.

"Open brands" is not the perfect word, I agree, since "open" really can't apply to trademarks (well, at least not for long!). But "Open" hints at brand governance for the community itself, not for a single for-profit corporation.

Is there a bigger argument, or just terminology here?

Trademarks can't really be open the same way code is, but they can be managed for the public good, not for profit.

@mattdm

Sure, but I find "four levels of open" a simple and easy way to explain to newcomers why just the license isn't enough; the word 'open' is already overloaded so 🤷

And it's *possible* that for-profits can manage trademarks for the greater good - it's just much less likely to work well over time. There are few assurances, even with public charity governance restrictions in tax law, but they certainly help greatly.

@mattdm

Explicitly using level instead of aspect to show the common progression.

Open community is a project that actually accepts contributions from the community, based on value to project. Unlike some corporate open source projects that simply don't ever merge outside PRs or the like. Hence, the community of regular contributors might grow, rather than being static.

@mattdm

Indeed, there are four levels of open:

- Open source - under an OSI license
- Open community - may accept contributions
- Open governance - adds contributors to become maintainers
- Open brand - trademark is owned by a nonprofit foundation

@mattdm