The FreeCAD Project Association

Info about new community or project announcements, implemented features, classes, modules or APIs. Might get technical!
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yorik
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The FreeCAD Project Association

Post by yorik »

Hi folks,

This post is to announce the imminent birth of a new baby: The FreeCAD Project Association or better, the FPA ;)

Normally if all goes well (you never know with administration), it should be live in less than a month.

The FPA is a non-profit international association, seated in Belgium (for my own selfish convenience, as I did most of the paperwork). It is designed as a side body to FreeCAD, not a ruling instance. Its purpose is not to rule over or take ownership of FreeCAD, rather the contrary: to protect FreeCAD and allow it to continue living as a free, community-owned project, that can decide itself over its own destiny.

The FPA has 2 goals: 1) Help receiving money for FreeCAD, 2) Offer an "official" body to FreeCAD. That second goal is for ex. against third parties that need "someone to talk to", like institutions, administrations, companies..., and be able to hold things in name of FreeCAD, like assets, domain names, copyright...

In addition, the FPA members also vow to zeal to keep FreeCAD a free project, prevent somebody to take "ownership" of FreeCAD somehow, basically allow things to keep going as they are going now, where decisions are taken where they need to by who needs to,without any other form of interference or "governing". This is of paramount importance to all of us, and I firmly believe that's what makes FreeCAD special and different from many other FOSS projects.

The FPA has been founded by 8 people, all forum administrators here. Sorry about maintaining all this secret up to now, it was mostly for feasibility, we all know how these discussions can go far here on the forum, we would still be here arguing over details :) It will be fully transparent from day one (Just waiting for the "official" launch to publish all the details).

I hope you are as thrilled as I am! I think this is a small difference but that can make a big difference.

All the info and reports of the FPA are publicly available on https://github.com/FreeCAD/FPA
user1234
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Re: The FreeCAD Project Association

Post by user1234 »

Congratulation! And many thanks for working on it!

I must admit, that FreeCAD get that complexity and size, that this step is mandatory needed.

Greetings and many Luck for this project!

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adrianinsaval
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Re: The FreeCAD Project Association

Post by adrianinsaval »

I must admit, that FreeCAD get that complexity and size, that this step is mandatory needed.
agreed!
Thanks for putting in the work to make this happen yorik! Best of luck to FPA! I'm eager to know more details about it
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czinehuba
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Re: The FreeCAD Project Association

Post by czinehuba »

This is great new. I think it will be a great step forward to accelerate the project. I think many more companies will slowly be able to sponsor the project.

Well done to all who where involved.
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rockn
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Re: The FreeCAD Project Association

Post by rockn »

Congratulations ! The FreeCAD family will never stop growing ;)
Formations - Assistance - Développement : https://freecad-france.com
openBrain
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Re: The FreeCAD Project Association

Post by openBrain »

Where can I buy a T-shirt? :lol:
carlopav
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Re: The FreeCAD Project Association

Post by carlopav »

Great news! Bravo!
follow my experiments on BIM modelling for architecture design
Haavard
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Re: The FreeCAD Project Association

Post by Haavard »

Insert clapping emoji

+1 on the t-shirt by the way :lol:
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obelisk79
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Re: The FreeCAD Project Association

Post by obelisk79 »

Congratulations team! I hope this helps usher in new levels of greatness for the FreeCAD project and look forward to seeing continued growth and refinement over the coming years.
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paddle
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Re: The FreeCAD Project Association

Post by paddle »

Great idea.
I think having an entity open a lot of possibilities.

One thing you could do is sell profesionnal support to companies. I think a lot of companies are willing to pay for that and that it may be a limiting factor for some companies that there isn't pro support.

Also universities may be interested when looking for projects for students. Which can bring more developpers in.
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