[OSGeo-Discuss] scale of FOSS projects

[Miles Fidelman]

Howard Butler wrote:
>
> On May 6, 2008, at 3:10 PM, jo at frot.org wrote:
>> In the past i've heard it suggested that really successful open source
>> projects now need serious organisational backing. They can't be built
>> by a network of partly-funded enthusiast contributors alone.
>
> I think really successful open source projects are successful because 
> of serious organization, not necessarily a fire hose of funding. By 
> serious organization, I don't mean a rickety scaffolding of bureaucracy.
<snip>

I think I've made this comment before, but it probably bears repeating:  
History is a useful indicator.  As far as I can tell, most "really 
successful" open source projects started out as efforts that had some 
serious funding behind them, or something that allowed the initial 
developer(s) some running room to get a project started.

The examples of "really successful open source projects" that come to mind:

Sendmail: University based, lots of R&D funding.  Eventually led to a 
private company that maintains the open source version and provides 
commercial versions.  Arguably the most successful open source project ever.

Apache: Started as the NCSA web daemon, lots of government R&D funding.  
It has already been widely distributed and adopted by the time it 
stopped being research.  Adopted by key members of its user community.  
A good competitor for the most successful open source project ever.

Linux: Started as a thesis project.  Filled a critical niche (free 
alternative to Unix) - though it's still unclear why the BSD variants 
didn't end up dominating this niche.

GNU tools: Stallman, and a cast of thousands - with MIT providing a home.

Sympa (mailing list manager):  Still largely funded by a consortium of 
French universities.

And from the geospatial domain, GRASS:  Originally developed by the US Army.

At the moment, I can't think of any "really successful open source 
projects" that didn't have their origins with "a network of 
partly-funded enthusiast contributors" where the originator didn't have 
some form of organizational home and/or a funding stream for the first 
few releases of the software.

Now, if anybody has a good example of a more grass roots project that 
has survived - please, some examples would be a great contribution to 
this discussion.

Miles


-- 
Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs
Traverse Technologies 
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