The document discusses the importance of sustainability in free and open source software (FOSS) and the reasons behind the failure of some projects to achieve sustainability. Key points include planning for sustainability through proper governance, community building, and financial management. It emphasizes the necessity of proactive measures, such as defining licenses and documentation, to ensure ongoing project viability.

1. Free and Open Source Software:
Collaboration and Sustainability
Creating sustainable software

2. In this talk...
● What Sustainability is
● Why Sustainability is important
● Why FOSS projects fail to become sustainanble
● How to plan for sustainability

3. What is Sustainability?

4. Why Sustainability?
● Potential for reuse
● Greater public impact
● Potential commercial opportunities

5. Why do FOSS projects fail to
become sustainable?

6. Lack of 3rd Party Interest

7. Lack of Community Infrastructure
Broken Bridge by Roger McLaughlan CC-By-SA

8. Lack of Project Memory
Occasional Diary by Chris Lott CC-BY

9. Poor Release Process
Update by Randall Munroe CC-BY-NC

10. Planning for sustainability

11. Project Admin
● Choose an appropriate license
● Define and publish a governance model
● Define and publish a release proces
● Documentation!

12. Release Early, Release Often
Reuters

13. Quantify Project's Costs
● Financial Costs
● Human resources (development, bug triage,
release management, community curation)

14. Community Building
● Communication channels
● Peer support
● Events

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

16. Foundations

17. Dont wait until then end of the
project!

18. 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