My wife and I have a double that we rent out to two couples. Luckily, one of these couples has been in one side of the double for a couple years now. They are quite stable, and are excellent renters, at least as much as a landlord likes. Stability == good for landlords.

I was reviewing some code today, and a thought crossed my mind that sparked my landlord brain. I was staring at the copyright and license header in a Drizzle plugin and it struck me…

If ever there was a steady, rock-solid tenant, I would guess that it would be the occupant of this address:

51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA

Now, I don’t know if the Free Software Foundation owns the address above, or if they rent. But, it occurred to me that if they do rent the fifth floor of that building, that the owner of that building must have one of the most trustworthy and reliable tenants ever.

I mean, we all know how much of a pain in the ass it is to move households. You’ve got to notify everyone about the new address, find friends who will help move furniture for the price of a six-pack, etc. But think of the giant problem the FSF would have if it ever decided to move. Think of the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of source code files which would suddenly have an erroneous address. I wonder if the owner of that Franklin Street building has thought of this, and has smiled, knowing just how much of a pain changing addresses would be for the FSF. Hmmm, food for thought. 🙂