Aspects of Sustainability

Various groups, people, policies, tools, etc. that affect sustainability.

Discussing open source sustainability with any four people will quickly bring up a dozen different conversations, based on how each person is related to open source. To keep conversations productive, it helps to define what aspects of sustainability you’re considering.

Even if we confine sustainability to just “common open source projects”, the important points may be very different for someone working in a software company, versus lone maintainers, versus academics, or anyone else. This site offers context to discussions with a framework of major aspects to consider.

Some key aspects - or different ways to think about sustainability - are:

• Commercial Companies - Commercial companies outside of the software space.
• Contributors - Contributors volunteer their efforts directly to a project.
• Educational Institutions - Colleges, universities, and any schools that teach technical skills of some kind.
• FOSS Foundations - Non-profit foundations providing services to affiliated projects.
• Governments - Governments set legislative policies, provide grants, and are often major software users.
• Maintainers - Maintainers are individuals in charge of a software project.
• NGOs - Non-governmental organizations provide technical standards and more.
• Project Management Committees - PMCs are communities of volunteers in charge of a FOSS project.
• Software Companies - Commercial entities building software products.
• Software users - Users who are aware of some of the open source projects they use.