(from an original draft by Richard Hainsworth)
Establishing the Raku Foundation as a legal entity is just the first step in creating an organization dedicated to supporting the Raku Programming Language, that fits into the free-wheeling world of open source software development.
This article is about some of the challenges being faced by the group of volunteers attempting to do this.
Overall Structure
We live in a world that is very suspicious about the motivations of others, requiring transparency about all decisions. But this world is also populated by people who want the maximum freedom for themselves.
At the same time, the new European Union's law on Cyber Resilience looks as if it will create a new space for Free and Open Source developers by establishing a new sort of agency called an Open Source Steward.
The Raku Foundation is being set up - in part - to take advantage of this new law, and to provide Raku developers the legal space in which they can contribute to FOSS projects that could be used by corporate entities in their commercial offerings. But this also means that The Raku Foundation must have its legal status defined and its corporate governance structures need to be clear and understood.
Governance Structure
The Raku Foundation was established in the Netherlands, and so it has to be compliant with the laws of the Netherlands. In practice, this means that The Raku Foundation must have an Executive Board from the very start.
Dutch foundations may also have a Supervisory Board which can appoint and remove members of the Executive Board. In order to maximize transparency and the involvement of the Raku Community, such a Supervisory Board will be created with an election by the registered members of the Raku Community.
The way in which members will be registered, the elections conducted and the term Supervisory Board members will serve, will be set out in the Regulations. These Regulations are currently being finalised and will be made public as soon as possible.
In summary the Executive Board will be the main operational decision-maker, but the members of the Executive Board will be responsible to the Supervisory Board, which will be elected by the members of the Raku community.
Working Groups and Committees
The Raku Foundation already has some specialised needs, such as the development and maintenance of the Raku Programming Language web sites, the continuing development of the Raku Programming Language, and managing the marketing process.
Since the time that what is now the Raku Programming Language began to be developed, progress came about as enthusiastic volunteers worked on the projects they found interesting. This self-organising way of doing things needs to be preserved.
In general decisions are reached by consensus, usually by developers implementing things in a concrete way, and then others offering opinions and tweaks. The least amount of formality is better.
But there have also been times when the Raku Community has needed an official voice or group that can speak on behalf of the whole community. Since such a group is speaking and acting for the whole community, such a group needs to be bound by formal rules.
So The Raku Foundation needs both informal self-organising groups, and formal rule-based groups. The Executive Board has decided to call these two types of groups Committees and Working Groups.
Committee
A Committee, such as the Community Affairs Team, will be:
- appointed by the Executive Board,
- have a fixed set of operating instructions, area of operation, and powers,
- will act on behalf of The Raku Foundation in its area of operation.
Note that even though Committee members will be appointed by the Executive Board, the decision on which Raku Community members will be appointed, may well be following an advise by the Supervisory Board, or even an election of some sort.
Working Group
A Working Group will
- co-opt is own members,
- organize itself as the members see fit,
- have a set of goals or purposes,
- be encouraged to form by the Executive Board involving developers already contributing in some area,
- be supported (hopefully in the future financially) by The Raku Foundation.
To be able to do this work, The Raku Foundation needs donations. Please
consider giving a donation!
When a number of highly motivated individuals work together with little organizational structure, some conflicts will undoubtably form. In addition, some decisions may have profound financial or long-term effects and reasonable people will disagree about the right way to proceed.
In such cases, it will be for the Executive Board to resolve the conflicts, and/or to choose one of the possible courses of action.
Existing structures
Over the years, a number of de-facto working groups have formed. Some of them are more actve than others, and the amount of activity varies depending on the availability of the volunteers.
It is the Executive Board's intent to let all of these existing structures continue to exist as is. An overview of these structures:
Documentation Working Group
The people taking care of the documentation of the Raku Programming Language, specifically the documentation repository and the documentation website.
Infrastructure Working Group
The people taking care of keeping a lot of the Raku online services alive and kicking (such as https://raku.org).
Marketing Working Group
The Marketing Working Group has been largely dormant for the past 5 years or so. Fortunately some people have come forward to revive this working group to provide new marketing materials.
Raku Steering Council
Since the Raku Steering Council in its current form was originally created after an election, it feels like the Raku Steering Council should be considered a Committee rather than a Working Group in the future.
Community Affairs Team
The Community Affairs Team was originally created by the Raku Steering Council. It feels like this should also become a Committee rather than a Working Group in the future.
New structures
Some new structures will need to be created.
CVE Numbering Authority
The Raku Programming Language will need to set up its own
CVE Numbering Authority for all of the core components of the currently only full implementation of the Raku Programming Language (MoarVM / NQP / Rakudo).
Since this involves trust, both from within the Raku Community, but also from the general Open Source security community, this will most likely need be a Committee.
CRA Working Group
More people will need to become up-to-date on the developments with regards to the [Cyber Resilience Act (https://github.com/orcwg/orcwg/blob/main/cyber-resilience-sig/whitepapers/stewards-and-cra.md) and its effects on the Raku Programming Language.
Conclusion
There's plenty of work to be done!
If you consider yourself part of the Raku Community, or would like to be involved now or in the future, please register your interest so that we will be able to contact you in the (near) future!
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