wxWindows Software Foundation and Copyright Assignment FAQ |
As wxWidgets grows in popularity, and more and more large organisations start to rely on it, it becomes more apparent that we need better representation. The Foundation provides a legal entity to represent wxWidgets and protect it from possible predators: the recent attack on Linux intellectual property has shown that this is not a trivial threat. Also, by forming the Foundation, we're making a statement that wxWidgets is here to stay, it has important allies, and it takes its responsibilities seriously. We hope to provide a forum for organisations to interact with the project, attracting funding and partnership to help wxWidgets grow and adapt to changes in the world of application development.
However I (VZ) was personally more moved by the answer to this question on wx-dev mailing list by Hajo Kirchhoff:
The foundation is a legal neccessity, creating a single legal body to represent wxWidgets. Like creating an Avatar for a massive multiuser strategy game called "US law system".
Indeed, this is much more succinct but describes the idea of the Foundation very well: in case of any legal action (such as stopping wxWidgets copyright violation by others), we must have a legal representation ("Avatar") just in order to be able to play [the legal games]. This doesn't ensure that we win, but without such legal presence we have no chance whatsoever.
Chairman: Mitch Kapor (OSAF)
Director: Julian Smart (wxWidgets)
Director: Vadim Zeitlin (wxWidgets)
Director: Stefan Csomor (wxWidgets)
The board will meet in person about once every year, with more frequent conference calls throughout the year.
The board is biassed to have a majority of members from the wxWidgets development team, to avoid any prospect of the imposition of decisions upon the development comomunity.
We are also considering setting up a Technical Advisory Board, where we invite experts from a range of organisations to contribute.