[Cryptech Core] linux foundation proposal

[Peter Stuge]

Hi,

thank you very much for exploring this alternative!


Phil Roberts wrote:
> The CrypTech business team has reviewed the requirements and
> recommends that we seek to become a supported project under the
> Linux Foundation.
..
> - decide whether this is the way we want to proceed with the project
> 
> What do you think?

I think it's a very poor alternative.


I can not consider the US an appropriate jurisdiction for anything to
do with openness or a common good, because of the simplistic US tax
code alone.


And more specifically I can't consider Linux Foundation an appropriate
umbrella for CrypTech.

--8<-- https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/
The Linux Foundation is dedicated to building sustainable ecosystems
around open source projects to accelerate technology development and
industry adoption.
-->8--

"buildling sustainable ecosystems to accelerate technology development"
is great fluff for startups but it doesn't align with CrypTech's mission
and vision.


"Accelerated technology development" was never a priority for CrypTech
and I don't see any reason to change that, indeed quite the opposite.

My experience with the Linux Foundation in the past has been that it
becomes increasingly corporate-centric, which is to be expected, but
is clearly not in the public interest.

One small example is how registration fees for LF events have increased
quite a lot and quite quickly, for really no good reason (regular IETF
attendees may still find fees refreshingly low though? ;) - a tendency
which is as clear as it is logical to me, but I see no reason for
CrypTech to join that crowd.


I also consider it unneccessarily burdensome to have CrypTech tied
primarily to US currency, because it is quite inconvenient to deal
with for everyone not in the US.


So I strongly oppose moving CrypTech in part or whole into the
Linux Foundation, or another US organization.


Since I couldn't be at the meeting I don't know what the requirements
for a new CrypTech office are, but I know of two legal entity types
(three counting foundations) in Germany that I think would be more
suitable for an open source project than the LF; gGmbH and e.V.

Both are pretty easy to set up and operate at the CrypTech scale.


Being frugal - as the CrypTech project has been so far - seems by far
the most sustainable to me.


//Peter