Open source software enables communities, and entire industries, to collaborate on standards and solutions to problems that would be challenging or impossible for a single entity to create, fund, and support. The mission of the InterUSS Platform is to enhance communication and collaboration within the drone industry, and help solve the shared challenges facing regulatory bodies and USSPs. The project has seen significant successes in this endeavor, as evidenced by increased global adoption of its automated testing capabilities.
InterUSS Platform is a directed fund of the Linux Foundation, as are most projects under the LF. A directed fund is a funding and governance structure for a given project. It generally establishes, at a minimum, a fund charter and Governing Board, a technical charter and Technical Steering Committee (TSC), and an initial membership agreement / fee structure.
When drafting project charters, the LF will work with project stakeholders to devise a governance structure that enables industry collaboration and broader participation given the specifics of the project’s industry and ecosystem, and at the same time adheres to LF policies and open source principles. At times, the Governing Board may propose changes to these governing structures as the needs of the project or ecosystem change, pending review and approval from the Linux Foundation’s legal team.
The technical body – in the case of InterUSS Platform a Technical Steering Committee (TSC) – is independent from, but collaborative with, the Governing Board. The TSC establishes protocols for technical contributions, development workflows, and releases. To keep up with what’s happening with the technical development of InterUSS, we encourage you to join our mailing list, our Slack workspace, or stop by the weekly contributors sync on Tuesdays. The InterUSS Platform welcomes technical contributions from any interested parties, membership is not required.
InterUSS Platform’s charter also established an Outreach Committee, and last year the Governing Board created the InterUSS Platform’s Advisory Council, which brings together a global group of regulators and drone industry stakeholders to inform and advise the development and adoption in InterUSS technology.
Linux Foundation services
In addition to providing a neutral, independent home for collaboration and intellectual property, the Linux Foundation has teams that provide various services to LF Projects, including:
- Legal support, trademark and other IP protection
- Events support – from project meetups to 10k+ attendee conferences
- Education – from quick skill trainings on Git or Vim to professional certifications like Certified Kubernetes Administrator and Certified IT Associate
- Research
- Communications and Marketing support
- IT Services ranging from basic DNS support to managed CI/CD pipelines and release engineering.
- The LFX platform, an open-source project management platform, which provides meeting management, mailing lists, polling, development and contributor metrics, security guidance from the OpenSSF Foundation, and more.
We hope this was informative, and answered some questions you might have had about the InterUSS Platform’s governance, and the Linux Foundation in general. Please reach out any time with questions or concerns at outreach@interussplatform.org
