Filesender is an example of a successful project developed by NRENs. Its development started 10 years ago; development continues to this day but has always been (though procedural improvements of recent years, the founding of TCC being one, have alleviated this critical dependance somewhat) reliant on specific individuals. Collecting funds in a sustainable manner is a challenge - no systematic, broadly-accepted, collective approach exists to conduct funds collection through, and the situation is made worse because many NRENs cannot “raise a purchase order” to support OSS projects. There’s been little marketing, fund raising or further development of the service although this is now changing. The non-technical support is the biggest problem.
Another problem is that some NRENs are not allowed to fund initiatives such as The Commons Conservancy. There is also a political problem that management doesn’t trust OSS as it was not developed by the well known commercial businesses. -> standardised IT culture. Do we want to compete with the well-known tech enterprises?
The Commons Conservancy has been looking to improve the process, make it easier to contribute and have less bureaucracy.
There has been a steady decline in innovation in NRENs in recent years. New initiatives like the Innovation Programme are looking to address this but do not currently have long term sustainability as a goal - the aim is generating innovative ideas.
Why are some orgs - e.g. RENATER - successful? Supported by management, supported by strong national policy.
Current support for software development in GN5-1 includes;
OS and licence support:
Information can be found at: docs.software.geant.org
Support is important, but we also need to make a plan for continuation when a project or funding stream ends.
Development of open standards goes hand in hand with open software.
We are already doing it. Should we advertise more? Should we ask for doing it more? Develop a GÉANT project policy?
We need to ensure that OSS is part of the strategy of GÉANT and the NRENs.
It was noted that we’ve not been able to make the commercials pay their way when using our software (e.g. Shibboleth). Should we actually be dual licensing? Not be so free? This then creates an overhead of managing payments for software which is challenging for NRENs.
Can we ask subcontractors to show that they contribute to OSS? Make it a requirement.
The participants agreed that we need to improve the way we contribute to OSS and help understand the risks of not doing this before they hit us.
OSS as a strategic sourcing tool, as part of our collective long term digital autonomy strategy and stable service delivery strategy.
Create a mailing list for further discussion: https://lists.geant.org/sympa/info/open-source.