On the Perl and Raku Foundation

The announcement of a change of name of "The Perl Foundation" to the "The Perl and Raku Foundation" left me feeling puzzled, and I should say disappointed.

Fortunately, after the last Raku Steering Council meeting, it became clear that my disappointment was unwarranted. And that my (and probably a lot of other people's) puzzlement was caused by poor wording of the announcement, not by what it was trying to convey.

A little history

But before we go on, a little history is in order:

During the mid 1990's, O'Reilly started organizing a yearly "Perl Conference". Over the years, this morphed into "OSCON" focusing on Open Source in general, rather than being just about Perl. And it became actually quite expensive to attend.

By the end of the 1990's, a group of people decided that it was time to have a proper Perl conference again, being as cheap as possible, organised by local Perl groups. These conferences became known as "Yet Another Perl Conference" or "YAPC". The reason that it couldn't be just called "The Perl Conference", was that O'Reilly had the rights to that name, or was at least perceived to have that right.

In order to support people organizing YAPC's in the United States, a foundation was created by the name of "Yet Another Society" (aka "YAS"). Over the years, this foundation added a "doing business as" (aka "dba", also known as "trade name") registration with the name "The Perl Foundation". And it is mostly known by that name nowadays, rather than its officially business name "Yet Another Society".

As such, The Perl Foundation (aka "TPF") has been supporting Perl (both 5 and 6) over many years already. But under the hood, it was really "YAS" doing the support.

Consequences of rename of Perl 6

When Perl 6 was renamed to "The Raku Programming Language" in 2019, the consequences of that rename were discussed by yours truly with the then treasurer of YAS. The conclusion of this discussion was that it would be best to create another "dba" for YAS, called "The Raku Foundation". This would offer both Perl and Raku communities their own foundation in any Public Relations efforts. And as such, reduce the misconceptions that people might have about the relationship between Perl and Raku going forward in time.

Unfortunately, it took until the summer of 2022 for this "doing business as" to be finally registered. So now, YAS is known as "The Perl Foundation", but also as "The Raku Foundation". With the possibility of creating separate websites geared towards different audiences.

Rewording the announcement

The announcement read as follows:

The Perl Foundation operates as a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the advancement of the Perl and Raku programming languages. One way The Perl Foundation supports Perl and Raku is through grants. The Perl Foundation has had donations given specifically for both languages. As such, it is important to recognize the relationship the foundation has with not just Perl, but also Raku. This is why, following a vote from the board, The Perl Foundation will now be using a new name, The Perl and Raku Foundation (TPRF), where this is appropriate.

Now, knowing the background, the following rewording may make it clearer what was actually meant:

"Yet Another Society (aka YAS, of which The Perl Foundation is a "doing business as") operates as a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the advancement of the Perl and Raku programming languages. One way Yet Another Society supports Perl and Raku is through grants. Yet Another Society has had donations given specifically for both languages. As such, it is important to recognize the relationship the foundation has with not just Perl, but also Raku. This is why, following a vote from the board, YAS will be registering a new "doing business as" called "The Perl And Raku Foundation". And will now be using "The Perl and Raku Foundation" (aka TPRF), where this is appropriate in the future."

Final words

I would like to thank all on the TPRF board for their work for the Perl and Raku Programming Languages. Specifically I would like to thank Daniel Sockwell for clearing up my puzzlement. Now let's move this forward!