The Role of Foundations in Open Source Projects-code shoppy

The Role of Foundations in Open Source Projects-code shoppy

In the last years, a number of Open-Source Systems (OSS) have created parallel foundations, as legal instruments to better articulate the structure, collaboration and financial model for the project. Some examples are Apache, Linux, Mozilla, Eclipse or Django foundations. Nevertheless, foundations largely differ in the kind of mission they have and the support they provide to their project/s. In this paper we study the role of foundations in open source software development. We analyze the nature of 89 software foundations and then focus on the 18 most relevant ones to study their openness and influence in the development practices taking place in the endorsed projects. Our results reveal the existence of a significant number of foundations with the sole purpose of promoting the importance of the free software movement and/or that limit themselves to core legal aspects but do not play any role in the day-to-day operations of the project (e.g., a few of them are just umbrella organizations for a large variety of projects). Therefore, while useful, foundations do not remove the need for specific projects to develop their own governance, contribution and development policies.

 

n the last years, a number of Open-Source Systems (OSS) have created parallel foundations, as legal instruments to better articulate the structure, collaboration, and financial model for the project. Some examples are Apache, Linux, Mozilla, Eclipse or Django foundations. Nevertheless, foundations largely differ in the kind of mission they have and the support they provide to their project/s. In this blog post, we study the role of foundations in open source software development.covid 19 project using django project

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We analyze the nature, activities, role, and governance of 101 software foundations and then go deeper on the 27 having as concrete goal the development and evolution of specific open source projects (and not just generic actions to promote the free software movement or similar).

Our results reveal the existence of a significant number of foundations with the sole purpose of promoting the free software movement and/or that limit themselves to core legal aspects but do not play any role in the day-to-day operations of the project (e.g., umbrella organizations for a large variety of projects). Therefore, while useful, foundations do not remove the need for specific projects to develop their own specific governance, contribution and development policies.Online Complaint Registration

As part of the work we have also launched a website displaying all these open source foundations. Click on the foundation name to see its individual characteristics or filter them based on a number of predefined dimensions. We are also happy to see that the official EU report on the “The impact of open source software and hardware on technological independence, competitiveness and innovation in the EU economy” reuses part of this work. So make sure you contribute any missing foundation or wrong information!

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