danielsiders
commented
12 years ago I am, for one. Also @titanous. We needed a legal entity to own and assert copyright over the protocol (in the same way that the IETF does for HTTP). This prevents fragmentation and the improper use of branding. For example, we need to be able to stop companies from claiming they support Tent if they do not. This is how nearly all standards are managed. Apollic Software, LLC was a company that we already had available that we'd used as a sandbox for past projects (including one by an intern for a friend a few years ago, Hello Cruel World). We were in a rush to publish and didn't have the $1,000 that it would have taken to create a new LLC in time.
As I mentioned when we spoke on Tent, the Tent protocol and specification, Tent.io website, and any eventual Tent branding should all be transferred to a foundation whose sole purpose is to promote and protect the standard as it develops. We have thoughts about several other protocols for different purposes, so those might bu part of this unnamed foundation in the future as well.
Tent.is is a startup. We would like to work on Tent full time. To do that we need money, probably from customers and maybe from venture capitalists before that. We will soon transfer Tent.is to a new company for this purpose. We have discussed a Mozilla-like model in which the foundation would own all or part of the for-profit company and use its revenue to help fund standards development, but it is too early to say.
A separate issue is the open source projects tentd, TentStatus, and TentAdmin. All were created by the Tent.io/Tent.is team and are MIT licensed. Contributions to those repositories will continue to be governed under the MIT license.
Of course any independent projects you begin which utilize Tent are yours and yours alone.
The Tent protocol is an open standard and we want to keep it that way. We only recently (~2 weeks ago) decided to run Tent.is for profit, we've been working on the Tent protocol for almost one year. Our commitment to the future of the protocol is stronger than our commitment to operating a business. Soon we will transfer the Tent protocol and related properties to a new foundation, but this process takes time, money, lawyers, and accountants, all of which we have in limited supply. There may also be an incentive in waiting until the start of the new year because of the tax impact of this transfer. Not being either a lawyer or accountant, I don't know and have limited time to inquire at present. That's all the assurance I can give you at the moment. If you would like to wait to contribute until the formation of the foundation, we would of course understand. We have big plans for Tent and want to set everything up properly, which may take some time.
I look forward to your possible future contributions, please let me know if you have any further questions.
I'm interested in contributing design services and programming to Tent.io, as it looks like a pretty promising protocol so far.
However, the one thing that I got hung up on looking over your Contribute page on the website, is the ownership thing:
Now, I can understand the necessity of this, but if people are going to be contributing logos, web designs, etc. they need to know who the organisation they're handing their rights over to is.
Who is Apollic Software LLC? The same company who made this Hello Cruel World App? Is there a guarantee that Tent.io will remain not-for-profit and a logo I submit will only be used not-for-profit, etc?