Member Stories

Member stories are accounts from the Foundation's member organisations, in their own words: why they joined, what they work on, and what membership means to them. No stories have been published yet, because the membership programme itself is still being set up. We are not going to invent members to fill the page.

When the programme opens and organisations join, their stories will appear here — written by them, checked by us for accuracy, and never rewritten into marketing copy.

To be direct about where things stand: the membership programme is being designed now. The structure, tiers, and dues are not final, and we will publish them in full — including exactly what members get and what they do not — before asking any organisation to join.

What we can say already: membership will be open to organisations of any size, from two-person startups to large institutions, and the terms will be the same public terms for everyone. There will be no private arrangements and no unpublished benefits.

Membership in the Foundation is a form of recognition and support: a public statement that an organisation values open-source embedded systems research and wants to help sustain it. Members will be listed, thanked, and invited to Foundation events and briefings.

What membership does not buy is technical influence. The direction of our software is decided in the open, through the public governance process in our repositories — proposals, review, and discussion that anyone can read and join. No member, whatever their dues, gets a private vote on what gets merged. We consider that separation essential, and it will be written into the programme's terms.

The Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity. Membership dues are one of the ways a nonprofit sustains its work alongside donations and grants, and they give organisations a formal, transparent way to support research they depend on.

Dues go to the Foundation's charitable mission — research, education, and open technology for the public benefit — not to any private interest. Our finances are reported on the transparency page, and members' contributions will appear there like everything else.

If your organisation would like to be told when the programme opens, write to partners@embeddedos.org with your organisation's name and a contact person. We will keep a list and notify everyone on it at the same time — no early access for anyone.

Registering interest commits you to nothing. It simply means you want the information when it is ready. We will not use the list for anything else, and you can ask to be removed at any time.

Once members exist, their stories will cover practical ground: what the organisation builds, which of the Foundation's projects it uses or contributes to, and why open-source embedded software matters to its work. We expect the stories to be specific rather than grand — a team's experience is more useful than a mission statement.

Stories will be published as submitted, after a factual check. If a member leaves the programme, their story will be marked as historical rather than removed, so the record stays honest about who was part of the Foundation and when.