Prior to this specification, membership applications have been relatively informal, and guidance has been similarly ad-hoc. This document provides the form of membership applications, which is part of the remit of the XSF Board.

The intent is to provide as few rules as possible, but ensure that the XSF has the essential information required to make a decision on the application.

Although at the time this document was written, the XSF has only ever had "natural persons" - that is, ordinary people - apply for membership, the &BYLAWS; explicitly allow for corporate membership. In order to ensure the form of an application can satisfy this, this document will assume such applications may occur in the future.

This document will distinguish requirements by using the term "Applicant" to mean either type, "Natural Applicant" for actual people, and "Corporate Applicant" for legal entities other than natural persons.

Applications are to be submitted as a new Wiki Page on the XSF Wiki, and linked from a single Wiki page which will be included in the announcement email sent by the XSF Secretary.

Applicants are solely responsible for their own applications, and the applications shall be their own. Members and prospective members should not edit anyone else's application. Exceptions to this latter shall be made only with permission of the Board, the XSF Secretary, or the Executive Director; and the Applicant concerned.

In the case that a particular application is questionable for some reason - if it is thought to be missing mandatory information or failing to disclose affiliations - a member may raise a Challenge with the membership, by sending a message to the members list detailing the issues. A member request a member of the &BOARD; to raise the Challenge anonymously on their behalf; the member of the Board however is in no way compelled to do so.

The XSF Board is the final arbiter of such Challenges, and shall make a final decision on whether the application should be rejected; however the Board is expected to take into account any rough consensus of the members. Any rejection will include any remedies possible.

Notwithstanding the final nature of the XSF Board's decision, any application so rejected may be resubmitted by the Applicant, presumably after addressing the issues.

The purpose of the mandatory information is to allow the XSF Secretary sufficient information to adhere to the XSF Bylaws. As a secondary purpose, it also allows the XSF members to make an informed decision when voting to accept applications; it is important for Applicants to understand that this mandatory information is unlikely to be sufficient to convince the members, however.

There are privacy implications inherent in the public disclosure of the information in an Application, particularly by a Natural Applicant.

These are an unavoidable consequence of the Application.

This document has no considerations for IANA.

This document has no considerations for the XMPP Registrar.