# Octave Governance

This page should clarify about the various entities and actors around the GNU Octave programming language.

## GNU Octave

The GNU Octave project was initialized 1992 by **John W. Eaton** <jwe@octave.org>.
It consists of [some code](https://www.octave.org/hg/octave)
and a community of people who work on that code.
The most clear cut line that can be drawn is that there is a
[set of people](https://savannah.gnu.org/project/memberlist.php?group=octave)
who have commit access to the GNU Octave Savannah project:
there are currently 24 committers (10 active and 14 dormant).
This set of people doesn’t really define the project, however,
since there are many people who are prolific contributors to the GNU Octave
ecosystem but who do not have
“[commit bit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committer#Commit_bit).”
The communal nature of open-source makes it difficult to precisely define
where the GNU Octave project ends and the greater community begins,
which is exactly how we like it.

Until the present day,
most final development decisions are made or agreed with by John W. Eaton.

## Free Software Foundation (FSF)

The FSF <https://www.fsf.org/> is a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
promoting computer user freedom.

With the help of the FSF, both indivials and corporations have the opportunity to
[donate to the GNU Octave project](https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=10).
Despite the free usage of the FSF infrastructure for distributing
the GNU Octave source code.

The GNU Octave project does not receive any direct or indirect
monetary fundings by the FSF.

## Related Organizations With No Governance Role

There are organizations that people sometimes mistakenly believe
have some kind of official control over the GNU Octave project.
This section details three of them,
but please note that neither has any official relationship
to the GNU Octave project,
nor any governance capacity with respect to the project.
Individuals who have some control over the project
and happen to belong to these organizations,
have that control as individuals and not as members of those organizations
and takes the separation of those roles quite seriously.

### Octave Forge and Octave Packages

**Octave Forge** <https://octave.sourceforge.io/> is the former collection
of software packages, that can be easily installed and used in GNU Octave.
The Octave Sourceforge project was initiated in 2000
and active development stopped in 2018.
New packages are not accepted, but existing packages are still maintained.
The project lists [56 members](https://sourceforge.net/p/octave/_members/)
(10 active and 46 dormant) maintaining existing Octave packages,
but not the source code of GNU Octave itself.

**Octave Packages** <https://gnu-octave.github.io/packages/> is another
collection of Octave packages and intended as the successor of **Octave Forge**.
New packages are accepted here and the development is independent of GNU Octave itself.
Until today full support by Octave's package manager is not given, however,
it is a fully functional index for Octave packages.

### GitHub Organization

The GitHub Organization <https://github.com/gnu-octave/>
was established around 2020.
It is a loose connection of currently
[27 members](https://github.com/orgs/gnu-octave/people)
(10 active and 14 dormant)
developing software intended to be used with GNU Octave,
but not the source code of GNU Octave itself.

## Questions

If you have questions about GNU Octave's governance structure,
please reach out via email to <jwe@octave.org>.


This page is inspired by the [JuliaLang project](https://julialang.org/governance/).