Hey folks, At UN Open Source Week in late June, Sander Striker introduced me to Bill Branan, who runs the Open Source Program Office at Johns Hopkins University. We had a follow-up call on July 20.
Bill's core interest is understanding when Apache is a good fit for academic/research software projects coming out of JHU. He's looking at the full picture - what the ASF offers, what the Incubator journey looks like, and how projects build sustainable communities once they arrive. We also talked about when a project might better fit at some other foundation. He's also interested in better messaging around the value proposition of Apache as a foundation home - specifically for research software that has outgrown its university lab but needs governance and community infrastructure to thrive. I offered to mentor any JHU projects that look like a good fit, or at least keep the conversation going as they evaluate their options. Academic OSPOs are an underserved audience for our "how to get involved" messaging. If JHU projects start showing up at the Incubator, having clear onboarding paths helps everyone. There may be an opportunity for ComDev to develop materials specifically aimed at institutional/academic projects considering Apache. I'd really like to talk with anyone else that is already working in this kind of space, and compare notes. -- Rich --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
