Introduction to Open Source Community Governance

This is an overview of open source software community governance. Even if you buy an open source platform through a vendor, the code and platform come from the open source community. Typically, development is done through the community, a code release comes from the community (vendors can and do participate as well), and each vendor grabs and applies that code. By engaging with the community, it’s possible to have an active say in how that platform works and what features it has. This presentation covers open source community governance, including common features of open source communities such as committee structures, committer calls, bug reporting, and the balance of community management with code management. Presenters have extensive experience with open source software and community governance including with Islandora, Open Journal Systems, Joomla, and Drupal. Presenters will give examples from open source communities including the FOLIO LSP community, including specific tools used for community governance such as how to use Jira to search and upvote bug fixes, how to sign up for Confluence and use it to explore and engage with committees, and how developers working for libraries and for vendors might engage with the community by getting feedback and determining what areas to build out and contribute code on.