notes.jays.net

Perl Mongers + co-op

I met with Salve J. Nilsen briefly on 2026-10-21. If I'm understanding our conversation correctly:

European laws are coming where software stacks will need to certify security maintenance, or businesses will be forced to stop using that software. If no organization offers to attest to the security of Perl / CPAN, businesses will be forced to stop using Perl.

Salve's idea is to launch a "CPAN co-op" (that name is a placeholder) where a new non-profit, legally registered worker-owned cooperative can offer to sell attestations of security on Perl stacks for money. That money can be donated and/or distributed amongst the partnering co-op organizations -- whatever mechanisms are enacted by votes of the member orgs.

Several Perl Monger groups are already legally registered non-profits. In the United States, this could mean 501(c)3, "Not-For-Profit Corporation", or a dozen other things, depending on the state? Other countries have equivalent registration schemes.

Salve would like me to expand the perl_mongers.xml DTD with new fields so that Perl Monger groups can add their non-profit details if they have them and wish to be members of the co-op.

This should be an easy change, once we have a few examples to work with? Something like this?

  <group id="0" status="active">
    <!-- new york was the first group -->
    <name>NY.pm</name>
    <location>
      <city>New York City</city>
      <state>New York</state>
      <country>United States of America</country>
      ...
    <nonprofit>
      <registration_type>501(c)3</registration_type>
      <registration_id>12-3456789</registration_id>
      <!-- 
        A 501 (c) (3) is a US nonprofit the IRS recognizes as tax-exempt and eligible to
        receive tax-deductible donations. An EIN is the unique nine-digit ID the IRS assigns
        to that organization, formatted like 12-3456789.
      -->

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