The Zope Foundation was legally formed in March 2006. We are in the process of building membership and electing the first board of directors. The purpose of the Zope Foundation is to advance the creation, evolution, promotion, adoption and support of the Zope Platform and to cultivate both an open source community and an ecosystem of complementary products, capabilities, and services. The Zope Foundation will provide an independent venue for the safekeeping of the Zope software and related materials. The Zope Foundation is governed by a Board of Directors elected annually to represent the stakeholders in the Zope Community. The Board is composed as follows: * Strategic Developer Directors: Strategic Developers may appoint one (1) Director. * Strategic Consumer Directors: Strategic Consumer Members may elect one Director for every Strategic Director. * Committer Directors: Committer Members will elect one (1) Director for every Strategic Director. * Solution Provider Directors: Solution Providers will elect one (1) Director for every three (3) Strategic Developer Directors. Solution Providers are entitled to elect at least one (1) Director in any event. * Associate Directors: Associate Members will elect one (1) Director to the Board A library of Zope Foundation formation documentation is available on-line at: http://www.zope.org/DevHome/Foundation/ The Zope Foundation will own the copyright to the software and related materials (e.g., documentation) that comprises the Zope Platform. The Zope Foundation will own and operate the Zope website at www.zope.org and related servers, such as mail.zope.org and svn.zope.org. The Board will undertake additional initiatives in its sole discretion (e.g., platform marketing, development coordination, documentation coordination, etc.) The Zope Foundation needs active members to ensure the Zope Platform continues to be successful! Information on the membership classes is described in the by laws: http://www.zope.org/DevHome/Foundation/ZopeFoundationByLaws.pdf and in the membership agreement: http://www.zope.org/DevHome/Foundation/ ZopeFoundationMembershipAgreement.pdf I encourage you to support the Foundation by - Becoming a member - Volunteering your time by: o Participating in the Zope Foundation Mailing list, o Volunteering on Foundation sponsored projects, such as zope.org operation, development projects, etc. Deadlines We are having elections for board directors representing committer, solution-provider, and associate members. We are currently accepting nominations for directors. Members of each class can nominate directors for that class. For the solution-provider and committer members, nominees can only be from that class. For example, only committer members can nominate committer-member directors and those nominees must be committer members. The nomination process closes June 13. Voting begins June 14th and closes June 21st. Obviously, only members can vote. Strategic Developer and Consumer members can appoint directors. These appointments must be made by June 21st. Becoming a member To become a member, you need to fill out and submit a membership agreement: http://www.zope.org/DevHome/Foundation/ ZopeFoundationMembershipAgreement.pdf You can submit a membership agreement by: - Mailing it to: Zope Foundation, Incorporated ATTN: Committer Agreements c/o Zope Corporation 513 Prince Edward Street Fredericksburg, VA USA, 22401 - Faxing it to: +1 703 995 0412 - Emailing a scanned copy to: legal@zope.org To join as a committer member: - You must first be invited. - You must also submit a committer agreement: http://www.zope.org/DevHome/Foundation/ ZopeFoundation_Committer_Agreement.pdf Please submit the membership agreement and the committer agreement together to make less work for volunteers handling the agreements. For other membership classes: - Make sure you satisfy the requirements of the membership class. - Determine your dues and pay them. You can pay in three ways: 1. Send a check made out to the Zope Foundation to The Zope Foundation, c/o Zope Corporation 513 Prince Edward Street, Fredericksburg, VA, USA, 22401. 2. Make a payment using PayPal 3. Make a payment using a wire transfer to the Zope Foundation Bank account. Contact legal@zope.org for PayPal or wire-transfer instructions. General questions should be send to foundation@zope.org. Questions specific to you should be sent to legal@zope.org. Jim -- Jim Fulton mailto:jim@zope.com Python Powered! CTO (540) 361-1714 http://www.python.org Zope Corporation http://www.zope.com http://www.zope.org