Open Source Sustainability Playbooks

One of the motivations behind Open Source Wishlist was promote the knowledge that: We know how to fix MOST sustainability issues in open source. There's not a lot of mystery, communities like CHAOSS, Kubernetes, Rust, Drupal, CNCF, Porter have built a ton of stuff - all openly available.

The challenge is, that we want maintainers and other volunteers to achieve those goals. Paying the maintainer will help, but extended that to additionally pay other, skilled people to deliver on these levers of sustainability is key. That could be funding a core contributor's time - or contracting specialized consultant like those in our Practitioner Community. "Think OSPO for the rest of us."

The knowledge exists, the experts exist but people must be paid; maintainers must be given support and not just more tasks to fix.

These playbooks include outcomes for sustainability, focused on known levers and based on formal-requests by maintainers for help. They provide resources, and most importantly a rubric to rate outcomes. These are Open Educational Resources (OER) that anyone can take, work with and contribute to.

• Succession Planning : Solve the solo-maintainer problem by setting up for inclusive leadership, making visible the opportunity to lead, and grow through leadership contribution.
• Funding Strategy: Setup for success through research, documentation and provided means for funding
• AI Consent Framework: Make consent part of community engagement, healthy communities require this now.
• Moderation Strategy: Many burnout situations begin and end with effective moderation strategies.
• Project and Community Governance: Governance sets projects up for many aspects of success, including trusted distribution of funds to contributors.
• CRA Compliance: Based on the most recent checklist of responsiblities.
• Developer Relations Strategy: Many maintainers need help, but lack the time to do setup for success with those they most need to join and contribute. Help them.