Avoiding abandon-ware: getting to grips with the open development method

Open development is the process of peer review and transparent development that many successful open source projects adopt. This document discusses the general principles of open development and describes why it is an important part of open source software development.

Governance models

How decisions are made, how community is managed and how this important information should be communicated to any potential collaborating partners is the topic of this document. Having a clear governance model is important to both potential contributors and project leaders, who will wish to ensure that they maintain an appropriate level of control over the project.

Sustainable open source

Understanding the most appropriate structure for reaching sustainability for a specific project allows for proper planning and development. This document discusses the common structural models adopted.

Software Sustainability Maturity Model (SSMM)

The SSMM brings together the community and technical aspects of sustainable software and provides a model for measuring performance against good practice. Using this model project leaders can evaluate actual versus desired performance.

The business of open source

Open source is both a licence and a development model, it is not a business model. However, there are many business models that can be adopted to exploit software released under an open source license. This document provides a simple introduction to these models which, in the main, do not differ from traditional software business models.

Open source and open innovation

Here we explore open innovation in general and examines the areas of agreement and difference between the notions of 'open innovation' and 'free and open source software'.

Free and open source software and your patents

For most people software patents and open source do not mix. This document examines software patents and how they interact with Free and Open Source software licences.