The point of the foundation is to ensure free access, in perpetuity, to the projects we support. People and businesses may come and go, so it is important to ensure that the source code for these projects will survive beyond the current contributor base, that we may create a stable platform for web publishing for generations to come.

Wordpress Foundation

Via. Hanni.

The sentiment here is powerful, but whilst providing the means to maintain a piece of software free forever is a good thing, my immediate thought was to how we might offer the same kind of insurance to the content that people create with it. I’m not trying to suggest that content preservation is in any way a related responsibility of a tool builder, just that it’s another problem and whilst software can be protected in a foundation, individual content isn’t yet, and such strong words from Wordpress here make me more aware of perils facing content.

I wonder if it’s feasible for groups of people (potentially quite large groups) to come together under a banner and form foundations around their content; ‘Content Cooperatives’? Together, manage a shared fund to host static content archives in the event of loss, maintain domain name registrations, and share the responsibilities of content back-up. Via: ratherirkso.me.