Sourceware, one of the longest standing Free Software hosting platforms, joins SFC

Mon May 15 18:09:30 UTC 2023

Sourceware, one of the longest standing Free Software hosting platforms, joins SFC
  Important Free Software infrastructure project finds non-profit home

URL: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2023/may/15/sourceware-joins-sfc/

Social media:
  https://social.sfconservancy.org/notice/AVge1aeg2Vo3btrtDM
  https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/1658171545414688772

As a home for Free Software projects since 1998, Sourceware is a
keystone in Free Software infrastructure. For almost 25 years Sourceware
has been the long-time home of various core toolchain project
communities. Projects like Cygwin, a UNIX API for Win32 systems, the GNU
Toolchain, including GCC, the GNU Compiler Colection, two C libraries,
glibc and newlib, binary tools, binutils and elfutils, debuggers and
profilers, GDB, systemtap and valgrind. Sourceware also hosts standard
groups like gnu-gabi and the DWARF Debugging Standard. See the full list
project hosted and services provided on the Sourceware projects [0]
page.

Becoming an SFC member project will improve future operations carried
out by dedicated volunteers to and furthering the mission of Free
Software hosting. This will accelerate the Sourceware technical roadmap
[1] to improve and modernize the infrastructure.

As the fiscal host of Sourceware, Software Freedom Conservancy will
provide a home for fundraising, legal assistance and governance that
will benefit all projects under Sourceware's care. We share one mission:
developing, distributing and advocating for Software Freedom. And to
offer a worry-free, friendly home for Free Software communities. We see
a bright future working together. With Conservancy as fiscal sponsor,
Sourceware will also be able to fundraise and have the community of
volunteers work together with paid contractors and enter into contracts
for managed infrastructure where appropriate.

SFC looks to Sourceware's years of experience in providing outstanding
infrastructure as an inspiration for improving the Free Software
ecosystem both for other SFC projects, and also in furthering SFC's
mission around campaigns to promote Software Freedom Infrastructure. For
decades, Sourceware has shown that hosting Free Software projects with
Free Software infrastructure is not only possible, but helps create and
fosters the growth of relationships and networks within the Free
Software communities. SFC is thrilled to join the powerful history of
demonstrable experience to grow hosting options that are 100% free
software, in the future to bring in new ideas, communities, and
projects!

Projects hosted by Sourceware are part of the core toolchain for
GNU/Linux distros, embedded systems, the cloud and, through Cygwin,
Windows. Back in 1984 Ken Thompson's Reflections on Trusting Trust
already described how making the source code for these tools available
is essential to create what today we call secure software supply chains.
Sourceware provides robust infrastructure and services for projects to
adopt secure collaboration and release policies. We forsee future
cooperation with other Conservancy member projects, such as the
Reproducible Builds [2] project which provides an
independently-verifiable path to supply chain security. Additionally,
Sourceware will leverage Conservancy advisory role in how community
projects are impacted by and can comply with regulations like NIST,
CISA, USA Cyber Security Directives and the EU Cyber Resilience act.

Each SFC member project is led by a Project Leadership Committee (PLC).
Each individual member of the PLC participates in their own capacity,
but nevertheless the majority of the PLC never includes a majority of
people affiliated with the same organization. Sourceware's PLC includes
various volunteers, past and present, from the Sourceware community. The
founding PLC is: Frank Ch. Eigler, Christopher Faylor, Ian Kelling, Ian
Lance Taylor, Tom Tromey, Jon Turney, and Mark J. Wielaard.

Recent discussions have inspired the Sourceware volunteers to think
carefully about the future and succession of the leadership for this
important hosting project. By joining SFC, Sourceware gains access to
strategic advice and governance expertise to recruit new volunteers and
raise funds to support work on Sourceware infrastructure. As part of
this governance improvement, Sourceware also announces today regular irc
office hours for guest project admins to advise and discuss any needs
and issues in hosting. The Sourceware mission page lists various other
ways to contact and participate in the community.

Sourceware will continue its long standing mission of providing free
software infrastructure to the projects it supports, and this will not
change moving forward. The affiliation with SFC will be transparent to
the projects hosted on Sourceware. Project admins will keep being in
charge of how they utilize the services Sourceware provides.

To support the Software Freedom Conservancy, please become a Sustainer
[3].

You can also donate [4] directly to Sourceware (mention Sourceware in
the comment or memo line).

See the donation page [5] for other ways to donate.

Sourceware may be volunteer managed, but wouldn't be possible without
the hardware, network resources and services provided by Red Hat and
OSUOSL. Additionally build/CI testing machines [6] are provided by
various individuals and the Brno University, Marist College, IBM, the
Works on Arm initiative and the Gentoo Foundation.

[0] https://sourceware.org/projects.html
[1] https://inbox.sourceware.org/overseers/YrLdfDWzq1T4k5xg@wildebeest.org/
[2] https://reproducible-builds.org/
[3] https://sfconservancy.org/sustainer/
[4] https://sfconservancy.org/donate/#wire
[5] https://sfconservancy.org/donate/
[6] https://builder.sourceware.org/