Community

Making a community-managed FOSS project sustainable in the medium- to long-term

Strategies and tactics
M.community
Italo Vignoli
<p>LibreOffice was announced in 2010. After 10 years, it was necessary to review and update the strategy based on the evolution of the office suite market, to improve the sustainability model. Enterprises are not supporting the project as much as individual users. Over time, this can represent a threat for the sustainability of the project. We have changed our strategy to educate enterprises about the right approach to FOSS, by giving back to ensure the long term sustainability of the LibreOffice project.</p>
LibreOffice was announced in 2010 to relaunch innovation of the already stagnant OpenOffice project. After 10 years of growth, it was necessary to review and update the strategy based on the evolution of the office suite market, to improve the sustainability model. In fact, enterprises - although deploying LibreOffice to save money over proprietary solutions - are not supporting the project as much as individual users. Over time, this can represent a threat for the sustainability, as development can be slowed down. We have therefore changed our strategy to educate enterprises about the right approach to FOSS, by giving back in one of the many available ways: purchase the LTS version from the ecosystem, fund the development of a specific feature, pay for the solution of a bug or a regression, and so on. The right approach from enterprises would ensure the long term sustainability of the LibreOffice project, and the evolution of the Open Document Format (ODF) ISO standard file format for true interoperability.

Additional information

Type maintrack

More sessions

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