About

The project

Simbiosi.org started in the early 2000s as an idea: build a company entirely on Free and Open Source software. Richard Stallman pointed the way to the Free Software Foundation Europe, and the GNU Herds project. Then life happened, and the plans went on pause for 20 years.

In March 2026 it came back as something different: an advocacy platform for open source sustainability. Not a business. Data-driven case studies, policy work, and practical tools for the people maintaining the software the world runs on.

Who’s behind it

Right now, mostly one person.

Antenore Gatta - Italian-Swiss, 30 years in IT, from GNU projects to cloud governance at Kyndryl. Former FSFE associate. Maintained Remmina from 2014 to 2023 (150,000+ users, ~1,000 CHF/year in donations: that’s what started all this). Currently volunteering on FreeBSD CRA compliance through the ORC Working Group.

Personal blog: antenore.simbiosi.org - tech writing on AWS, FreeBSD, security.

Contribute

This is meant to be a community project. The work needs people with different skills, not just one generalist.

Where we need help:

• Case studies - Financial analysis, donor research, public filings. Pick a project you care about and dig into the numbers.
• Fundraising & UX - Donation page redesign, grant writing, A/B testing. The donation page mockup is a starting point.
• Policy & compliance - CRA analysis, regulatory impact, documentation. The ORC WG is where the coordination happens.
• Translation - Content in English, but the open source community is global.
• Writing - Blog posts, case study drafts, interview outreach.

How to get involved:

• Open an issue on GitLab