OBF is now an SPI-associated project
I am very pleased to announce that the Open Bioinformatics Foundation (O|B|F) is now a Software in the Public Interest (SPI) associated project, rather than its own not-for-profit incorporation.
An electronic vote of O|B|F members on whether or not to provisionally approve the invitation from SPI closed yesterday at 19:00 UTC. We had a participation of 39 out of 105 eligible, or 37%, which is far above the quorum of 10%. The tally is 38 for provisionally accepting and 1 against. The tally can be seen (and audited) here:
https://vote.heliosvoting.org/helios/e/OBFjoiningSPI
The SPI Board vote on resolution 2012-09-28.jb.1 (“Open Bioinformatics Foundation as associated project”) resulted in 8 yes, 0 no, 0 abstain. Given the result of our election, I accepted the invitation right away.
Thanks to everyone who voted. On behalf of the Board, I am thrilled about the turnout!
This terminates O|B|F’s status as its own corporation, which over the years has been more trouble than gain. As an SPI-associated project, we can now accept donations that are 501(c)3 tax-exempt in the US, aside from other benefits. In the coming weeks and months we will be articulating what kind of objectives, platforms, and activities we can or should pursue, given our new status. I’ll communicate separately about that once it gets off the ground.
Finally, please join me in thanking Josh Berkus (SPI & PostgreSQL) for shepherding our joining SPI all the way through. And please also join me in saying hi to the SPI community – as I have done earlier I’d like to encourage everyone to consider joining the SPI as well. It’s a friendly community, and I like to think we can enrich it.
This is a historic day for our organization. Have a drink tonight 🙂
Cheers,
-hilmar
Note: This post is based on an email sent yesterday to the OBF member’s mailing list.