The website is a simple vuejs-based website which renders the checklist questions. All the data is obtained from data/data.json, which should facilitate contributions.
To-do’s:
Following Nathan’s idea about including links to useful resources, the data.json can include this information, but it is still not shown on the website.
Include “info” data for all questions in data.json. This field briefly describes the context and gives some guidance to understand the checklist question.
Refactor HTML code using vuejs components
Any comment/suggestion is more than welcome, feel free to comment here or send a pull request with the modifications on the file. Also, if you want to touch the HTML/CSS code, go ahead
talking about other resources I found this one from the Digital Impact Alliance (a group to extend the Sustainable Development Goals into the digital sphere) an interesting one
“Maturity Models for Open Source Centers”: https://www.osc.dial.community/maturity-model.html
I know we concentrated mainly on the social questions of governance readiness and checklists and the maturity model brings other factors instead, mainly “software code”, “licenses”, “releasese”, “quality” etc but still there are very interesting thoughts to take away from there. Especially for the complementary goals of this working group as outlined in Governance Readiness | A Space for Open Source Sustainers : “Identification of analysis dimensions in open source projects. It may be needed for the assessment of the current status of the project.”
I think the different levels they have for each category including a unique ID (for example CD10, CD20 etc.) is very helpful and concise. And I think it allows play of thoughts. For example I imagine a project that has software on level CD30 (“The code can be built in a reproducible way using widely available standard tools.”) but stays on level LC10 (The code is released under one of the preferred copyleft licenses explained in our Licensing Principles.) regarding the license they probably are in need of a governance model to avoid forking or any third-party introduction of governance that is contrary to the current community members of the project. It could be different, however, if the project is already on CD30 and on LC50 because any potential fork will not be able to take away existing names and brands etc.
Finally, there are a lot of interesting thoughts to take away on the “quality of governance” and as possible responds to the questions we raised in Governance Readiness Checklist - especially in the part about “community”
I actually came to this thread to share this May 2018 report from Mozilla and Open Tech Strategies on open source archetypes as they relate to business model and project governance. It is from two years ago but there is a lot of value in the definitions laid out here!
@jwf. There has been no more useful document to me in the past two years than the Open Source Archetypes. In the sustainability conversation it is especially relevant as paths to maintaining the core are very different for a community supported infrastructure project vs an large application developed by global non-profit. Often we just jump into the conversation on sustainability without first establishing what type of project we are discussing. Curious if you think that there is a need for a new archetype for Digital Public Goods or if there may be various flavors of DPGs that fit different archetypes.
Thanks @Dreirik! This maturity model may help us to give some structure to our proposal. I also see connections with the complementary goals of the working group.
I’m totally in for this. Thanks for the proposal @jwf. I can give a hand with that
And welcome @heatharensen! I’ll follow the discussion in the new thread.
in the last days, I’ve been filling the data fields that were missing on the website. I think we can say that we have reached the first final version. As usual, everything can be improved, so feel free to send PR or comments.
With this, I think we can conclude the main line of work of this group, at least for now
I would like to thank everyone that has been working on this, giving feedback, attending the meetings, participating in the poll, etc.
Do you think we could include the list of contributors on the site somewhere? I know you mention making the site and mention Sustain as part of it, but maybe we should call out the Governance working group? Just an idea! But overall I love it!!
Hi all, I just learned about a new webpage that I think can be very interesting to the people in this working group because it offers “an indexed collection of governance documents from Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects. A tool for people wishing to learn more about governance in FOSS.” https://fossgovernance.org/
Read more about the initial idea behind in this short blogpost:
I think it would deliver interesting insights to scan this collection with powerful search and index tools for similarities and conventions between them - in relevance to their respective and chosen governance model.
As mentioned before, the Principles group took Elinor Ostrom’s principles of Institutional Analysis and Design, from Governing the Commons, and translated those jargony principles into language that resonates with OSS communities. In our last workshop, we started developing a matrix in which each principle could be considered across the various layers of resources in an open source community – the code, the documentation, maintainers time, the brand/reputation, etc. I finally found time to go through the questions/checklist from this Governance Readiness working group, to see how these questions might align with the matrix.
Note that I exercised some editorial judgment both in sorting different questions into different parts of the matrix, and also in suggested revisions to some of the questions. (ofc I’m not an authority; I assume these suggested revisions should themselves be subject to review
Moving forward, I’m eager to hear feedback – does this alignment seem to make sense? Both in the aims/outputs of the two workgroups, and also on a topical basis? How can this be made more useful, and how should we iterate on it?
I’ve just reviewed the spreadsheet and added some changes (in red). I mostly agree with your proposal and have added the missing questions.
Regarding the alignment between the WGs, I think that the principles provide a framework for the questions we identified in this WG. Actually, we also found the need to give some dimensions to our questions (as the ones used at the report, cf. Annex 1; or the ones at CommunityRule). By relying on Ostrom’s principles, we can leverage in a more robust context.
I think that Ostrom’s principles approach governance from a broader point of view, or maybe it should be called “evolutionary” point of view; that is, it considers the current development status of the project. We were facing these issues when identifying the questions, as some of them are more suitable for specific development phases of a project (e.g., new or old projects). Also, it introduces situations we were not fully considering (e.g., governance on documentation).
I’m open to discussing this in a call if you prefer, @GeorgLink, please join!
