CASS Projects Open-Source Software Foundation Experiences

Open-source software projects face numerous challenges that they must overcome to survive, such as building a strong and vibrant community, assembling the resources needed to support the project's development and maintenance needs, creating a welcoming and supportive environment for contributors, and connecting with other projects that have similar goals and aspirations. Some of these challenges can be addressed by participating in a shared ecosystem of projects that are part of an open-source software foundation. In this blog post, we describe the experiences of four projects that were part of the US Department of Energy's Exascale Computing Project, and are now associated with the Consortium for the Advancement of Scientific Software, CASS. These projects have benefited from joining foundations in some common ways, such as creating a neutral home for the project and opening their governance to better support the project's developers and users. Other projects that may have an urgent need for direct funding support may not see the relative value in joining a foundation until they have resolved their immediate concern. Overall, this post aims to share experiences, so that projects can utilize this information to help them when considering joining a foundation.