Register as a (non-profit) corporation, appoint a board and keep all important credentials in escrow. Assign job titles and job specifications to all key personnel; if you don't know exactly who is responsible for what, you can't make contingency and continuity plans. Reject all pull requests that aren't comprehensively documented.
It sounds like a lot of work, but it has a tremendous RoI. The advantages of corporate personhood more than outweigh the administrative burden for a serious open-source project. The issues affecting Void are practically moot if accounts and domains are owned by a corporate person rather than a natural person.
It's obviously overkill for a personal side-project, but I'd consider it essential once you're starting to worry about your bus factor. If no-one involved in your project wants to deal with this admin, find someone who does. There are a lot of non-technical people who would still like to contribute to the free software movement.
This can be expensive and time-consuming in the US, at least.
I see no reason why a legal entity is needed here. Just set it up, keep all your credentials in a place that's accessible in a contingency, and move on with life.
Comments
Register as a (non-profit) corporation, appoint a board and keep all important credentials in escrow. Assign job titles and job specifications to all key personnel; if you don't know exactly who is responsible for what, you can't make contingency and continuity plans. Reject all pull requests that aren't comprehensively documented.
It sounds like a lot of work, but it has a tremendous RoI. The advantages of corporate personhood more than outweigh the administrative burden for a serious open-source project. The issues affecting Void are practically moot if accounts and domains are owned by a corporate person rather than a natural person.
It's obviously overkill for a personal side-project, but I'd consider it essential once you're starting to worry about your bus factor. If no-one involved in your project wants to deal with this admin, find someone who does. There are a lot of non-technical people who would still like to contribute to the free software movement.
This can be expensive and time-consuming in the US, at least.
I see no reason why a legal entity is needed here. Just set it up, keep all your credentials in a place that's accessible in a contingency, and move on with life.