Open Source Maintainers

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The software that powers so much of our technology infrastructure would not be possible without the individuals who maintain them. To understand more about this group of individuals, how maintainers become maintainers, and to capture their experiences, observations, and success stories, the Linux Foundation interviewed some of the community’s most influential maintainers.
 
In this research project, interviewees shared their best practices to balance the growth of a healthy software community with their own lives. Forty-one practices were collected throughout the interviews, including using inclusive language, providing radical transparency, prioritizing and formalizing documentation processes, ensuring there are regular funding sources, and pairing mentoring with diversity efforts. Read the report for the full list of best practices!
 
Author: Alex Salkever, Linux Foundation Research
With a foreword by Shuah Khan, Fellow, The Linux Foundation

More About LF Research

Open source communities are at the heart of an explosion of technical innovation, where industry leaders, engineers, and end users are collectively creating and improving the digital infrastructure on which the global economy depends.

With an extensive community of members, connections with thousands of companies, and hundreds of thousands of open source contributors, professionals, solution providers, and users, the Linux Foundation is in a unique position to investigate the growing scale of open source collaboration, and provide insights into emerging technology trends, best practices, and global impact of open source projects.

By leveraging project databases and networks, and through a commitment to best practices in quantitative and qualitative methodologies, Linux Foundation Research is designed to be the go-to repository for open source insights for the benefit of organizations and governments the world over.