In 2006, CollabNet, Inc. helped the committership of the Subversion open source project organize and incorporate for the purposes of having a legal entity tasked with protecting that software, its intellectual property, the solidity of its brand, and its general well-being. I was elected as one of the first Directors of the newly formed Subversion Corporation, and served as its Treasurer for the entirety of the Corporation's existence. Today, I can speak in the past tense about that existence because…
Subversion Corporation is dead!
Now that Subversion — I mean, Apache™ Subversion® — is wrapped up in the loving and protective arms of the Apache Software Foundation, there was nothing for the Subversion Corporation to do anyway. So the membership voted to dissolve the corporation, and for the past ten months I've been working with my fellow Directors and the fine lawyerly folks at the Software Freedom Law Center to do exactly that.
So, I guess I'm out of a job now. Or, at least, that job. I'm grateful that the Subversion developer community trusted me with the position I uniquely held for the past four years. But honestly, if the opportunity to do it again came 'round, I think I'd have to decline. I'd much rather be coding.
Long live Subversion! Long live the Apache Software Foundation!