Our last event discussed funding options for open source projects. Something that was not touched upon was the debacle around the re-licenses such as the introduction of the Commons Clause by Redis Labs, or the Server Side Public License, introduced by MongoDB. Something recently landed in my inbox on this topic - When Open Source Software Comes with Catches, run on Wired Magazine’s site. It’s an interesting overview of the difficulty to balance the principles of Open Source on the one hand, especially the clause that ensures “non-discrimination against a field of endeavour,” and the need for enacpsulating businesses to turn a profit.

A couple items got my attention at the end of the article:

  • Sustainable Free and Open Source Comunities a.k.a. SFOSC
    • Creating standardised guidelines and business model propositions for projects and businesses to adopt, just as a license would be adopted for a project
    • Defining a social contract of good citizenship in Open Source
  • Tidelift
    • Providing support services to consumers around projects, and paying that back to the projects being supported.

These both caught my eye because previously I had considered trying to start similar initiatives but never got around to doing anything about it.

Are there any projects or organisations you would highlight around improving the sustainability situation of the Open Source community as a whole? Let us know via @ScotlandOSUM!