Plone Foundation FAQs

Frequently asked questions about the Plone Foundation.

What does the Plone Foundation do?

The mission of the Plone Foundation is to protect and promote Plone. The Foundation provides marketing assistance, awareness, and evangelism assistance to the Plone community. The Foundation also assists with development funding and coordination of funding for large feature implementations. In this way, our role is similar to the role of the Apache Software Foundation and its relationship with the Apache Project.

Why does Plone need a Foundation?

Plone has reached critical mass, with enterprise implementations and worldwide usage. The Foundation is able to speak for Plone, and provide strong and consistent advocacy for both the project and the community. The Plone Foundation also helps ensure a level playing field, to preserve what is good about Plone as new participants arrive.

Will Plone still be Open Source?

Absolutely. Plone will be issued under an OSI-approved license. The Foundation has worked to build a guarantee of this nature in to the Foundation bylaws and in the contributor agreement.

Will Plone will also be released under a non-GPL (or non-Open Source) license?

The current (pre-Foundation) Plone approach states that companies can negotiate a non-GPL license. Thus, the Foundation might pursue a dual-licensing (GPL and non-GPL) scheme — but at this time, the Board has not yet created any policies on this. This is an important question for the community and the Foundation intends to have this conversation in a transparent way. For more information see Contributor's Agreement for Plone Explained.

I've read articles online about the Foundation that say that Plone will no longer be under GPL. Is this true?

No. Plone is licensed under the GPL and the Foundation has not changed this. These news articles are not accurate.

Will the Foundation "own" Plone?

The Plone contributors have transferred their ownership rights to the Foundation. This ensures that there is a safe, consistent, and flexible organization that can handle the Plone "commons."

Who are or will be corporate sponsors for the Foundation?

The Foundation partnered with a corporate sponsor, Computer Associates, during our initial launch.

Does the Foundation offer grants to developers working on Plone?

Perhaps in the future, but the primary focus of the Foundation is on marketing, evangelism, and legal issues.

What is the relationship between the Plone Team and the Plone Foundation?

The Plone Team is a group of people who have made signficant contributions to Plone (code, documentation, community efforts and so forth). The Plone Team's primary role and membership will remain unchanged. The Foundation was created to support the Plone Team as well as other developers and users.

Who makes technical decisions for Plone?

The fundamental process will not change: the development team will continue to lead. However, the Foundation might help manage the release process and the long-term roadmap.

Also, the Foundation can act as court-of-last-resort when the existing process cannot produce a resolution. Who are members of the Foundation?

The Foundation is a membership-based organization: see our "Member list":members.

How can my company financially support the Foundation?

If you are a Plone consulting firm, we invite you to become a Plone Foundation sponsor. We also warmly welcome financial support from other companies, institutions, and individuals.

How can I reach the Foundation?

Please email the board of directors at board at plone.org.