I just saw the news from last month:
and A new home for the Open Collective Platform. Same Mission!
Having read those and putting together my understanding from the past, I have this narrative in mind (to which I invite corrections as appropriate):
- OC started VC-funded with some unusually good setup (fully-FLO software license, explicit social-community values) and worked with less-awful non-generic VC’s (but VC’s still)
- OC started up independent “collectives” as fiscal sponsors, some of which were non-profit
- One collective became dominant: “Open Source Collective” as it succeeded at getting prominent enough projects and getting corporate funding (like from Microsoft and others as a place to put their open-source funding support)
- As other collectives struggled or failed, OC announced intentions to “exit-to-community”, somehow wishing to buy out the VC investors and become a co-op and/or non-profit somehow
- Given the overall community having no prospect of getting enough money to pay off the VC investors, this new plan came out to split the OC for-profit brand from the OC software that Open Source Collective relies on
- The new structure appears to be:
- First, Open Source Collective led the creation of an OC 501(c)(6) (meaning non-profit tax-exempt business league sort of thing, not charity) such that they and related partners can support the maintenance and development of the software (which was FLO anyway, so anyone could have ostensibly forked it)
- Significant individual stakeholders (founders and such) from OC donated their stock to help facilitate the transition and are joining the new 501(c)(6) Board
- The original for-profit OC is still indebted to the VC investors, and they plan to use the brand and some of the connected people to develop some other attempts at profit, working in a “web3” direction
So, what I think this means for the FLO-funding market is that OC as a platform is likely to continue, will be controlled by the business interests that fit the 501(c)(6)'s business profile, and that means primarily a tool for large corporations to coordinate in funding FLO software that they share. For comparison, the Linux Foundation is also a 501(c)(6) with corporate orientation.
It’s possible that the new non-profit will continue supporting all sorts of community things too, probably anyone will still be able to donate to projects. It’s possible (but less sure) whether they will support all sorts of other “collectives” or just focus on Open Source Collective.
I’ll leave it at that for now, but this is a situation to follow and to discuss further.