Today the Ghost Foundation announced that it is moving to Singapore.
This is a very unusual move in the world of open source. Here are the headquarters of some other major software foundations:
How unusual? Here are the headquarters of some other major software foundations:
- Mozilla: California, USA
- Drupal Association: Oregon, USA
- WordPress Foundation: California, USA
- GNOME Foundation: California, USA
- Linux Foundation: San Francisco, USA
- OpenID Foundation: Oregon, USA
- Apache Foundation: Michigan, USA
- Open Source Matters (Joomla): New York, USA
- Python Association: Delaware, USA
- Django Software Foundation: Kansas, USA
- NetBSD Foundation: Delaware, USA
- Zope Foundation: Texas, USA
- Perl Foundation: Michigan, USA
- Eclipse Foundation: Ottawa, Canada
- OpenBSD Foundation: Canada
- Document Foundation: Berlin, Germany
Notice that only a single foundation is based outside of North America.
Why is this a problem? Open Source projects are stubbornly US-centric. What does it say about open source that almost all the successful projects are run from such a small corner of the world?
Congrats to the Ghost Foundation, which is young and can pivot easily, for making such an interesting move.