Inkscape signs new FSA with SFC
March 27, 2023, 6 p.m.
Demystifying Membership – A Contributor's (updated) Guide to the Inkscape Project
On March 15, 2023, Inkscape's new Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement (FSA) was published to the inkscape.org website.
It's a big step forward for Inkscape's contributor community, but not everyone may know what it all means yet. So, we (the Vectors team, working on marketing and outreach) asked the people who should know, the members of Inkscape's Project Leadership Committee (PLC).
Vectors: Hi! First of all, let's get the acronyms out of the way: what do FSA, PLC and SFC mean and how do they relate to the project?
PLC: Hi! The SFC is short for the Software Freedom Conservancy, They are a US based 501c3 charity focused on software freedom and ethical technology; they act as the fiscal sponsor and legal home for the Inkscape project, since the project is not a legal entity. The SFC helps us hire people, pay for conferences, stickers, t-shirts, contracts and other things we might need like the trademark registration and infrastructure services.
The PLC is the term for the Inkscape Project Leadership Committee. It’s a kind of 'board of directors' (but not an actual board!) that oversees the project's organisation and coordinates with the Conservancy on behalf of the project.
The FSA is the Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement, the legal document which defines the relationship between the Inkscape project, the Project Leadership Committee and the Software Conservancy.
It defines governance of the project, the fiscal controls policy, contains a commitment to remaining free software and to further the goals and missions of both Software Freedom Conservancy and the Inkscape project.
Vectors: Okay, now we understand what they are, can you tell us why the FSA was changed?
PLC: The FSA has evolved over time and the latest version moves the project from representing a project of programmers to representing a project of contributors. It does this by widening participation in the election process for the Leadership Committee by specifying a more complete list of people who participate in the project.
This used to be defined as people who held copyright in the code via the AUTHORS’ list. This was too restrictive, so the new FSA only covers how the membership elects committee members. It doesn't cover how membership is gained and managed.
In order to define memberships, the project adopted a non-legal policy document which can be found here. This is an internal policy document which defines the rules about how people get onto the membership list.
Vectors: Were there any other updates to the FSA?
PLC: Some other changes were made, such as removing a previous PLC member's address and cleaning up some of the language to standardise it with other projects.
Vectors: Can you tell us a little about the process of updating the FSA?
PLC: The FSA was updated by conducting a number of meetings with the FSC, PLC members and various people from the community who were existing members and those who were contributing a lot, but not able to be members yet. The consultation process lasted a couple of months and resulted in a first draft of the needed changes to the FSA. People also worked on the membership policy to support the new FSA. Further changes were needed by both the PLC, including internal discussions, and the SFC, which had their own list of things to adjust (changing the address for the project, general updates to the FSA language and reviewing the membership change).
Vectors: What do the changes to the FSA mean for contributors?
PLC: The changes should allow the membership of the project to expand from being just programmers who hold copyright in the codebase itself to being anyone who has contributed to the project in a way that is materially agreeable to other members.
The technical changes also allows for people to apply for membership and invite people to become members directly on the website, in addition to approving others to become members. Everything is recorded for transparency and copied into GitLab repositories for safekeeping.
Vectors: What requirements do people need to meet to be/become a member? Do memberships expire?
PLC: We wanted to give the project the greatest amount of flexibility to decide for itself what counted as a contribution.
For the developer team, the existing policy of two commits into the code base was deemed sufficient. Other teams can set their own policies for when they will approve members who contribute through them. The bare bones requirement is for three other existing members to approve their membership request. Members from the related team would be expected to recognise each other's contributions and approve as needed.
Approving people who you don't know or haven't worked with is strongly discouraged and could end up with you having your own membership revoked (see 2. below), so don't do that!
Memberships cannot expire, but it is possible to be removed by a vote of the PLC. The three reasons for membership removal are as follows:
- A code of conduct violation which can't be resolved
- Approving non-contributors to the membership list
- Not being or having been a contributor in the first place
These are safety valves to make sure that abuse can be dealt with in a structured way. The intention is that no one would ever need to be removed or expired, but this sets out how that would happen. That said, you can leave if you want. Removing your membership from the team will remove your membership of Inkscape too.
Vectors: Is there anything that contributors need to do now, to become an official member?
PLC: A contributor to the project should go to the Inkscape website, navigate to the membership team page and click on the "Request Membership" button on the right side.
They will need a website account in order to do this. A contributor may also be invited by another member that knows the email address they used to register on the website. Other members will then be able to approve of them joining. Once enough people have approved, the contributor will be added to the members’ list automatically and can vote in future leadership elections.
Vectors: Thanks for answering our questions!
If you’re interested in joining the community as a member, learn more here.
If you are a contributor and you wish to become a member, to gain voting rights, head here. Search for your name in the list, and if it is not there yet, request your project membership. If you already are a member, please help review any pending membership requests - and don't forget to also check out the other teams! If you are a member, but do not have access to the user account that is linked from the membership list, please contact website administrators in the website chat channel.
