Git / Software Freedom Conservancy status report (2023)

In last year's "Git / SFC" status report, I promised that I'd try and share updates more regularly about our project financials, things that SFC have shared with us, etc. I'm happy to report that I have kept that promise ;-).

This email will serve as a report on the project's activities at Conservancy for the year 2023.

The previous report (from last year, whose format I'll try to stick to here) can be found at:

  https://lore.kernel.org/git/YyELnLai0jXsnt3W@nand.local/

# Background

Git is a member project of the Software Freedom Conservancy. The Git project joined Conservancy in 2010 so Conservancy could help us manage our money and other assets, and provide legal representation for trademark matters. Conservancy doesn't hold any copyright on any of the project's code. Similarly, being a member project at Conservancy does not grant Conservancy any influence in the project's development. The technical direction that Git takes is up to us.

Interested readers can take a look at a more full picture of what Conservancy does for the Git project at:

  https://sfconservancy.org/projects/services/

A "Project Leadership Committee" (PLC) represents the Git project at Conservancy. The PLC currently consists of Junio C Hamano, Christian Couder, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, and myself.

# Financials

The most recent data I have this year is from 2023-09-18, so these numbers should be more or less current.

We have ~$89k USD in our account, up ~$19k USD from where we were in March, 2022. This was a relatively good year for us in that regard, since the average year over year growth we have seen over the past is closer to ~$10k USD/yr.

Here are some top-level ledger numbers gathered since the end of March, 2022 (the date of the last report). Note that this is all double-entry, so negative numbers are good.

           $-22,058.48 Income:Git
           $-21,566.67   Donations
              $-491.14   Royalties
             $3,098.57 Expenses:Git
               $217.14   Banking Fees
               $452.22   Conferences:Travel
                 $0.00   Filing Fees
             $2,236.03   Hosting
               $193.18   Tax:Sales
               $-27.40 Assets:Receivable:Accounts
              $-131.58 Liabilities:Payable:Accounts
  --------------------
           $-19,118.89

Like last time, most of our money comes from donations. This year just 2% of it comes from royalties (last year this number was closer to 5%), all from Amazon affiliate links. 10% of all incoming money goes to Conservancy's general fund (the above numbers are after that 10% has been deducted).

Last year we spent money ($452.22 USD) sponsoring one GSoC student to attend the Contributor's Summit and Git Merge events in Chicago, IL.

One notable change from last time is that our hosting fees have gone up significantly. These are entirely from Heroku's change in policy to no longer grant the Git project hosting credits for the git-scm.com project. Our costs in the meantime have been supported by a generous donation from Dan Moore at FusionAuth. The below email has some more details:

  https://lore.kernel.org/git/YkcmtqcFaO7v1jW5@nand.local/

It appears that since the above was written, Heroku has a new (?) program for giving credits to open-source projects. The details are below:

  https://www.heroku.com/open-source-credit-program

I applied on behalf of the Git project on 2023-09-25, and will follow-up on the list if/when we hear back from them.

# Trademark

We hold a trademark on the term "Git" and its logo in the space of software and version control. The report from 2017 has a good overview of the details there:

  https://public-inbox.org/git/20170202024501.57hrw4657tsqerqq@sigill.intra.peff.net/

Last year, in response to some discussions we had with folks at Conservancy, Christian brought a discussion to the list about rethinking the way we treat our trademark in the future, particularly with respect to enforcement.

  https://lore.kernel.org/git/CAP8UFD3WQ64FuXarugF+CJ_-5sFNBCnqPE0AEBK-Ka78ituKTg@mail.gmail.com/

Conservancy has brought up this topic with the PLC a few times in our meetings throughout the year. My impression is that they would appreciate us taking another look at that discussion and (possibly) rethinking our trademark strategy as a result. I encourage folks to dig up that thread and share any thoughts they might have.

# Travel Budget Allocation

Like I mentioned above, we sponsored travel for one GSoC student to attend Git Merge and the Contributor's Summit last year year. The PLC formalized this process a little bit more rigidly in 2018. The report from that year has a good overview of the details.

Similarly, that whole procedure is (still) open for comments and suggestions. Our main focus is to make it possible for new contributors (particularly ones who have participated in programs like GSoC and Outreachy) to attend Git Merge (and, specifically, the Contributor's Summit) where it wouldn't otherwise be possible.

# Conclusion

That's all for this year. I'm happy to answer any questions on the list, and I'll propose a session on it at the Contributor's Summit tomorrow, in case folks want to discuss this further in person.

Thanks, Taylor

On Mon, Sep 25, 2023 at 02:37:13PM -0400, Taylor Blau wrote:

Out of the blue today I received an email from Heroku saying that our application to their open-source credit program was accepted. Quoting from their email:

  [...] We are excited to announce that your project was a fit to
  receive $250 credits/month for one year, totaling $3,000 in credits.
  These credits have been applied to the account submitted on the
  application, and will be valid from January 2024 to December 2024.

$250 per month is more than enough to cover our hosting costs (which average around ~$140 USD per month), so we should have plenty of room to host git-scm.com free of charge for this year.

I know that there are some plans in the works to convert git-scm.com to a static site in [1]. So even though we likely won't be on Heroku forever, this should tide us over until we're ready to move to GitHub Pages.

I would like to thank Dan Moore for his generous donation to the Git project, which has covered our Heroku bill in past years. Now that Heroku has agreed to cover out costs for this year, we will be able to use the funds Dan has graciously provided to on behalf of FusionAuth for other purposes.

Thanks, Taylor

[1]: https://github.com/git/git-scm.com/pull/1804