Benefits of Joining a Foundation

Are you wondering what the benefits of joining an open source foundation are? Here is a list of some of the things that a project may gain from joining a foundation. Please contact us if you would like more information about foundations or would like assistance joining!

• Project leaders benefit from participation in the foundation’s network, which includes leaders from a variety of scientifically oriented open source computing communities
• Foundations can leverage their broad, international network to help build connections that support their projects
• Foundations create opportunities for project leaders to connect with one another as a group to learn lessons and share experiences
• Projects can benefit from elevated visibility as a result of their association with the foundation - via the foundation’s communications and marketing activities
• Foundations can showcase projects to potential funders, including government, philanthropy and industry
• Foundations can showcase projects to potential users
• Foundations can showcase projects to potential collaborators, possibly leading to a connected ecosystem/stack of coordinated projects
• A neutral home for the project outside of any one developer/maintainer’s organization
• The foundation can hire/contract global developers/maintainers
• The foundation can contract global developers/maintainers for short-term activities
• The foundation can protect the intellectual property associated with the project more effectively than an institution that doesn’t specialize in software
• Projects in the foundation can coordinate to acquire common services (e.g., CI platforms, customer relationship management (CRM) software, etc.)
• Foundations can provide good enough / best practices for common needs, such as governance, codes of conduct, roadmapping, DEI practices, licenses, contributing guidelines, etc.
• Foundations can incubate projects and help them progress, including a possible ramp-down or termination
• Foundations can help projects address security
• Foundations can help grow a diverse, skilled workforce for software in the open source ecosystem