At that time I had criticized FossBazaar not for being a genuinely good idea, but for missing the point when it comes to what I believe is one of the single most important factor in FOSS projects management: Paying attention -and respect- to the community. Some time after that Martin Michlmayr, former Debian Project Lead and a present member of Fossbazaar, remembered me one of the oldest rules of the Foss communities. If something is broken, then try to fix it instead of sitting somewhere and criticize anything that goes by. And indeed, by doing this, Martin showed what community was all about; participation and respect. This is why I will discuss the importance of community in a Foss project, and why it does matter, even for business.
There is a big buzz today in the free and open source world. That buzz revolves around the memes of legal compliance, code stewardship, and project governance. And in a way, this is what FossBazaar is all about. But perhaps the first thing we should realize is that this is actually a very good sign that Free and Open Source Software is gaining in importance and that the industry and the entirety of the stakeholders behind it (customers, legislators, etc.) are realizing the specificity of its phenomenon and the uniqueness of its ambivalence (a state of the art, a philosophy, a business idea, or something entirely different). Not that I am still expecting any evidence that Foss is gaining in traction. Today, Free Software is everywhere. It lies on the backbone of the Internet, it runs at the core of the Fortune 500 IT infrastructures, it helps millions of small and medium businesses on a daily basis and is being shipped by some of the aerospace most famous players (NASA, Airbus, Boeing, ESA, etc.). Denying this reality is foolish and seems at best to be the apanage of the blind and at worst of the disingenuous. Yet that buzz is the symptom of something else; we may not have reached the stage where many organizations « get » Free and Open Source Software; but at least, we find ourselves in an interesting situation where the questions and the concerns gain in relevance and deserve sound answers.
So why should we think about project governance, legal compliance and code stewardship? Because as the state of the art has changed our industry in many ways, and that it is time to tackle these concerns as Free and Open Source Software have reached a stage where its adoption is now a matter of reasonnable choice and not religion for people who wish to innovate, as well as cut costs.To be sure, some of these issues are more important in North America than in Europe (licensing), while code stewardship and project sustainability tend to be of a more European focus.
Hence the new prevalence of these concerns. Yet, among all this buzz, the word community is somewhat toned down or a bit obfuscated. I believe that in as much as the practicioners of FossBazaar (including Ars Aperta, my company) apply project management methodologies, and think about how best to deal with licensing hurdles, we would miss the whole point by forgetting the importance of community. We actually don't, and this deserves some explanation.
Let's say that client A wants to open source some piece of software and has some strong rational incentives to do that. Roughly put, client A hopes it won't be the only one develop that piece of software that is at the same time of primary importance to its business (no vendor can or shall provide this software to the client) and not a core part of its business (client A is not a software vendor). The logical (perhaps even mecanical ?) way to open source this software for client A would go along these lines and in no particular order:
- audit the software code
- audit the IP/track and sort out potential licensing conflicts (if necessary, redevelop some part of the software code
- identify the software development team and try to get a sense of a roadmap
- change the licence or choose a Foss license
- put it on a public software repository (binaries, source code)
Do that....They will come! Well, it does not necessarily work that way. Or rather, that's where the opensourcing of Client A's software really leaves the predictability zone. And that's usually where your contract stops. But thinking forward, here's a value proposition that we have worked on ever since Ars Aperta came to life: how to give birth to a community and make it sustainable.
Once your software is on SourceForge, it may get some interest from a few people. Downloads are usually a coarse, but reliable evidence of this. You may even get a few contributors, although that's more rare, but how do you make it happen? And how do you make it happen in the long run?
That's an art, and not a technology. It requires a deep understanding of how FOSS works, a good knowledge of the FOSS projects' graph and background, some human skills, and a right vision on the goals and needs of the players. It is thus an alchemy, and an alchemy of sorts, that, just as its homonym was deemed to be the Art of the Wise, the Grand Art the Ars Magna, puts forth the distinct requirement of openness, making it the Art of Openness, the Ars Aperta. (More on this in a later post).
All this shows that the difficulty in community building lies in achieving openness and enabling engagement by stirring up interest and teamwork. All this is not easily seen or discernable in methodologies, perhaps because it is quite intangible, being an intrinsically human matter.
In anyway, FOSS projects cannot work without a community. The good news however, is that anybody can join. Even when you would think your software vendor sells you support agreements on free and open source software, you can still engage with the community, and be a part of it. All it may take could be time, but it could take more. But I do think that it's worth the resources you might invest in it, as it benefits you and your organization just as it benefits the rest of community.
This inclusive approach lies at the core of the FOSS community, and requires openness, which in turn requires freedom. The benefits are numerous: code sustainability, resources pooling, better quality, and demands that are better met. I could go ahead and write a whole list of these, but it would be useless at this point. Understand this: The community is the glue that holds your whole FOSS project together. It is that important. And I am glad we can start a conversation on this, through FossBazaar.
Cheers!