The Zope Foundation was incorporated in March this year. This is a major accomplishment for the Zope community in gaining self-governance. Much respect is to be paid to Zope Corporation for initiating this big step and financing it so far!
Become a member!
The foundation has been opened for membership since the beginning of this month. If you are in any way affiliated with Zope (you are using Zope, developing with or on Zope, your business is based on Zope, etc.), I suggest you become a member soon so that you can take part in the elections of the first board (see the deadlines for the board elections).
How do I become a member?
By filling out a Membership Agreement and sending it to the Zope Foundation, preferrably as a scanned image (pages 1 and 9 are enough) via email to [email protected].
Who can become a member?
Anybody. If you don’t qualify for any of the membership classes below, you can still become an Associate Member. There’s a small annual membership fee of USD 295, but you will get to elect one Director on the Board. If your business relies on Zope, but you aren’t a contributor or don’t have enough money to be a Strategic Developer or Consumer, this option gives you the chance to actively take part in the Zope Community nonetheless.
Contributors. If you have been contributing to Zope, the ZODB or the CMF in past months, you have probably received an invitation to join the Zope Foundation as a Committer Member. Use this invitation and join the foundation! In addition to signing a the Membership Agreement, you will also have to sign the new Committer Agreement which now attributes code to the Zope Foundation instead of Zope Corporation. Committer Members are allowed to elect as many Board Directors as there are Strategic Developers (at minimum one) from amongst themselves. Voting has already started and The current nominations are:
- Martijn Faassen
- Florent Guillaume
- Stephan Richter
- Tres Seaver
Companies with Zope contributors. Several of the (larger) companies in the Zope world employ at least two regular Zope committers. These companies are invited to join the Zope Foundation as Strategic Developers. They will have to pay an annual fee of $10,000 (in case they have ten or fewer employees, which is typically the case) and thus help the Zope Foundation to finance its activities (running *.zope.org servers, for example). In return, Strategic Developers get to appoint their very own Board Director.
All organizations. All Zope companies and other organizations are invited to join the Zope Foundation as Strategic Consumers. Their privileges are the same as with Strategic Developers, but since they don’t employ contributors, the annual fee is $25,000.
Spread the word!
I hope that many people and companies in the Zope world out there will consider becoming members of the Zope Foundation before voting for the new board has closed. That way the initial board will have large enough basis and enough directors to tackle the tasks of the upcoming year, most notably, the transferral of the intellectual property, take-over of the *.zope.org sites and hopefully the start of some PR work (such as a redesign of www.zope.org)
Zopistas from all over the world, unite!
Update: Voting has been stopped for now because candidates can still be nominated. Board elections will be held 13 thru 20 June. Nominations can be made till 13 June.
Update: Florent Guillaume has declined his candidacy for a board seat.
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