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title: Governance
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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 &lt;jwe@octave.org&gt;](mailto:jwe@octave.org).
It consists of a
[software source code repository](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 source code repository:
there are currently 24 committers (10 active and 14 dormant).
This set of people doesn’t really define the entire project.
Additionally, 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.
Finally,
most development and donation spending decisions are made by or agreed with
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 individuals 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 Octave project does not receive any direct or indirect
monetary funding 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 they have neither any official relationship
nor any governance capacity with the GNU Octave project.

#### 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 with 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 successor of **Octave Forge**.
New packages are accepted here and the development of Octave packages
is independent of GNU Octave itself.

#### 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 17 dormant)
developing software intended to be used with GNU Octave
(including **Octave Packages**),
but not the source code of GNU Octave itself.

### Questions

If you have any questions about GNU Octave's governance structure,
please reach out via email to [John W. Eaton &lt;jwe@octave.org&gt;](mailto:jwe@octave.org).


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