|
3. Building your own public sector OSS community | 5. Methodological Note | 
|
If there is one thing that you should take away from these Guidelines, it is that the sustainability of OSS communities is not a one-off investment. Once you either successfully join or launch an OSS community, it is important for your public administration and your steering committee to keep nurturing and growing the community behind your software.
In the long run, your community’s sustainability will rely on the following key factors: a clear governance structure, the vibrancy and health of the community, continuous commitment of the public administration’s political hierarchy to the project, sustainable funding, and the maturity of your software.
As mentioned throughout the Guidelines, transparency is at the heart of successful open source communities. For this reason, as your community evolves and grows over time, its governance should remain clear and transparent. This will help you to attract new members, make it easier to promote your software, and ensure the commitment of key community contributors.
Secondly, your community is only as strong as its members’ commitment to it. Hence, it is imperative that, over time, core team members remain committed to the software and continue contributing code, fixing bugs, and ensuring new software releases. Similarly, it is important to invest resources in raising the community’s visibility so that it can grow over time.
Given that the Guidelines focus on open source communities in public administrations, you need to invest time in guaranteeing the long-term commitment of the public administration to your community. As detailed in the Guidelines, this can be achieved by demonstrating successful project output and providing clear communication on how the community works.
Sustainable funding is essential the community’s growth. It will attract new community developers, and the funds can be invested in new features, used to organise events, and help to raise the community’s visibility.
Finally, at the core of OSS communities is the software itself. Your public administration should dedicate resources to maintaining the software over time rather than just investing in its implementation at the beginning.
It is our hope that, with the practical advice and scenarios laid out in the Guidelines, you will have more confidence and a deeper understanding of what it takes to launch a public sector open source project.