Governance

Fold Commons is governed by three bodies. All meeting minutes, conflict-of-interest disclosures, and quarterly budgets are public.

Three bodies

Maintainers

The people who write, review, and ship code. They make day-to-day technical decisions. Listed at github.com/foldcommons.

Authority: Code (what gets built, how it's reviewed). Releases (what ships and when). Technical roadmap.

Fiscal-oversight team

Once fiscal sponsorship is in place (via NumFOCUS or the Open Molecular Software Foundation), this team is the sponsor's designated overseer of Fold Commons funds.

Authority: Approve quarterly budgets. Sign off on grant applications. Review conflict-of-interest disclosures. Authorize substantial expenditures.

Scientific advisory body

Volunteer scientists who advise on accuracy, priorities, and ecosystem fit. Not paid; not employees; not legally liable for Fold Commons decisions.

Authority: Advisory only — the maintainers and fiscal-oversight team retain decision authority. Their advice on scientific accuracy is reviewed in good faith.

Transparency

• Quarterly reports published in our meeting minutes archive — financials, releases, install counts, community health.
• Conflict-of-interest disclosures from every maintainer, advisor, and fiscal-overseer published in the governance directory.
• Public ADRs — every significant decision is recorded as an Architecture Decision Record.
• Open-source code — Apache 2.0 at v1.0; CC BY 4.0 for content.

How to participate

• Contribute code or docs: read CONTRIBUTING.md on the relevant repo and pick an issue.
• Apply to the scientific advisory body: hello@foldcommons.org.
• Become a maintainer: earned through sustained contribution; nominated by existing maintainers.
• Report misconduct: conduct@foldcommons.org, per the Code of Conduct.

Status (June 2026)

• 2026-06-06: Org name "Fold Commons" cleared (DIY); ADR-002 (non-profit / free / OSS) accepted.
• 2026-06-07: foldcommons.org registered at Cloudflare.
• 2026 Q3: Fiscal sponsorship pursued via NumFOCUS + OMSF; community channels stood up.
• 2026-10-18: CZI EOSS Cycle 7 LOI filed.
• 2027 Q2: FoldLens v1.0 target ship + Apache 2.0 source publication.