In parallel to the software development that has gone into Plone 2.1, there has been an important and massive effort on the legal side of the software, and the implications of these efforts cannot be understated. After receiving initial funding from Computer Associates, the Plone Foundation — a neutral, non-profit organization controlled by the Plone community — was founded. The foundation has in the past year worked on several important issues for the future of Plone:

Transfer of the Plone ownership to the Foundation

The Plone code base is now fully owned by the non-profit Plone Foundation, which ensures a clear ownership structure and a simple answer to the question "who owns Plone?".

Legal backing by the very best

The Plone Foundation is a client of the Software Freedom Law Center that provides legal representation and other law related services to protect and advance Plone and open source.

Trademark Protection

The Plone Foundation has registered the trademark rights for Plone worldwide to ensure the brand integrity and protection of Plone.

Marketing collateral

The marketing committee of the Plone Foundation is tasked with producing marketing collateral that can be shared among the many Plone Solution Providers, and has started work on the centralized Provider Directory and case study repository.

As a solid organization working to further the interests of Plone, the Plone Foundation is working to Protect and Promote Plone.

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