FAQ

KIPs – KERI Improvement Protocols so that there will also be space for market-driven instead of only technically driven.

Good proposal; we’ll extend the current KIDS in this direction.

After a careful exchange of terms and the donor contract, there is the usual cooling-off period to sign the contract.

However, as soon as the contract is signed, the donor is obligated to pay the donorship, and we will have to strictly enforce that. A donor can only lay off the obligation by having another donor replace him/her.
This strict debtor management is necessary because we must deliver on our promises and need the finances to do so.

Having presented the general rule, individual cases can be discussed with the chairman of the Foundation to see if there is a way out.

In terms of execution, they are the only roles you can currently translate operationally into functions.
See the other parts of the website to dive deep into their competence profiles that lay out their task, responsibilities, and rights as foundation managers.

Besides the managers of the Foundation, whose rights are laid out in the Operational Agreement (Feb 2025: status concept) and the Memorandum of Understanding (Feb 2025: status concept), we have the members of the steering L3C.

There are no veto rights for the members of the L3C should there be a draw in the votes of the L3C, and Sam Smith is still a member of the L3C; he gets the privilege to add one extra member vote to get out of the stalemate.

The inventor has well-educated opinions on licensing an IP and is very well-suited to assess future changes and adapt to them for the well-being of the open-source KERI Suite.

That is why his role needs to be able to veto changes. In the future, when Samuel Smith steps back for any reason, we could adjust the statutes so that no board can change that decision in the future.

It could be a parallel approach to our effort via the ToIP/Linux foundation. However, it takes a lot of work and time to pursue ISO-TC individually.

Our take is to go through a recognized body like the Linux Foundation. Because ISO does not allow them to go straight to them.

After a careful exchange of terms and the donor contract, there is the usual cooling-off period to sign the contract.

However, as soon as the contract is signed, the donor is obligated to pay the donorship, and we will have to strictly enforce that. A donor can only lay off the obligation by having another donor replace him/her.
This strict debtor management is necessary because we must deliver on our promises and need the finances to do so.

Having presented the general rule, individual cases can be discussed with the chairman of the Foundation to see if there is a way out.

We have to keep the community together as well as we can. But not at all cost. How important do you think it is to operate as a unit?

Anyone would prefer to be “Sam Smith Certified,” and to get there; any donor has to establish a connection with the one and only KERI foundation supported by the inventor.

We consider any other foundation that claims to be the KERI foundation a business. We will happily and in a friendly way offer services to them and could coopetively move forward.

I wonder whether a 3-person board of directors is so functional and effective.
The foundation design is a cathedral (from The Cathedral and The Bazaar, by Eric S. Raymond) with just three people on the board.

Yes, it is a team of managers (because we’ve reserved the term members for the steering L3C).

However, the cathedral is a mischaracterization. In history, there have been numerous successful foundations to support the development and implementation of open-source software that started with a three-person board of directors, including the inventor/benevolent dictator:

1. The Free Software Foundation (FSF). When it was founded by Richard Stallman in 1985, it had a board of directors with three members.
2. The Open Source Initiative (OSI). The OSI was founded in 1998 by Eric S. Raymond and Bruce Perens, along with a third initial member, to promote and protect open-source software by certifying licenses and advocating for open-source principles. While the exact composition of the board has evolved, the foundation initially had a small core group of influential members guiding its mission.
3. Apache Software Foundation (ASF): Founded in 1999, the ASF initially had a small group of individuals instrumental in its creation. The initial board included several key contributors to the Apache HTTP Server project, though the specific number of members can vary over time.
4. Python Software Foundation (PSF): The PSF started with a small board in 2001 to support the Python programming language. The initial board of directors was composed of a few key figures in the Python community, including Guido van Rossum, the creator of Python.
5. Linux Foundation: Although the Linux Foundation (founded in 2000 as the Open Source Development Labs) had a larger initial advisory board, its governing structure initially included a small, focused group of influential members from the open-source community, including Linus Torvalds, who played a significant role in guiding the foundation’s early direction.

I believe the structure is too narrow. We need more Board members.

One of our design principles is that we run it like a company, but it IS a board in a legal sense.

It is only reasonable, safe, and logical to first finish things in a small technical team and only then start diversifying.

We’ll reverse the question: How do you balance board managers over interest groups and continents? Does it become a political mess quickly?