Sisyphean Task or the Holy Grail? Satisfying Demands of Higher Education through Community-Driven Open Source Projects

What elements are essential to successful community-driven open source projects? How much governance and overhead is required to develop and sustain an open source project? What are the factors that enhance or limit the pace of development, the growth in the development community, community adoption and longevity? Many open source projects don't start out worrying about sustainability or longevity, but successful projects often require considerable effort to succeed over time.

This presentation and panel discussion will explore the use of community-driven open source projects to achieve the needs in higher education and review some of the many factors that may influence viability for community-driven open source projects. Specific projects will be discussed, along with a description of incubation strategies, governance approaches, growth challenges, ongoing support models, sustaining vibrant developer communities and lessons learned.