Free and Open Source Software: Collaboration and Sustainability

Creating sustainable software

In this talk...

● What Sustainability is● Why Sustainability is important● Why FOSS projects fail to become sustainanble● How to plan for sustainability

What is Sustainability?

Why Sustainability?

● Potential for reuse● Greater public impact● Potential commercial opportunities

Why do FOSS projects fail to become sustainable?

Lack of 3rd Party Interest

Lack of Community Infrastructure

Broken Bridge by Roger McLaughlan CC-By-SA

Lack of Project Memory

Occasional Diary by Chris Lott CC-BY

Poor Release Process

Update by Randall Munroe CC-BY-NC

Planning for sustainability

● Choose an appropriate license● Define and publish a governance model● Define and publish a release proces● Documentation!

Project Admin

Release Early, Release Often

Reuters

Quantify Project's Costs

● Financial Costs● Human resources (development, bug triage,

release management, community curation)

Community Building

● Communication channels● Peer support● Events

Commercial Exploitation

● Service provision (hosting, support)● Custom/sponsored development● Subscriptions● Dual-licensing

Foundations

Dont wait until then end of the project!

Further Reading

● Sustainable Open Source - http://oss.ly/5f● Evaulating Sustainability - http://oss.ly/5g● Planning For Sustainability - http://oss.ly/5h

Mark Johnson – mark.johnson@it.ox.ac.uk

@marxjohnson