Minimum Viable Governance
There is a proliferation of open source related non-profits, each working to drive attention to a set of projects or technology spaces, each demanding attention or membership dollars for growth. One of the first discussions such non-profits encounter is the governance discussion. Then come the projects for the non-profit to support, and each of them too wants to have a discussion about governance. We will look at the history of open source non-profits, and their governance structures, and how it met their goals (and the goals of their projects). Then we will look at what’s changed and work to evolve the model that people can use to judge for themselves whether a non-profit solves for the problems that need to be solved. Understanding the underlying governance models and structures in a non-profit will allow project owners and non-profit members to better judge what is needed for growth, what growth might look like, and what it will cost in effort and money. Sarah and Stephen have worked in a number of different open source project and non-profit settings and can speak to the models, mistakes, and learnings. From the Open Source Summit Europe 2020, delivered 26 Oct 2020. https://osseu2020.sched.com/event/eCGH/mvg-minimum-viable-governance-stephen-walli-sarah-novotny-microsoft
