Community source

Community Source is a type of software development used in colleges and universities that builds on the practices of open source software communities. The software of these collective efforts are distributed via an approved Open Source Initiative (OSI) license. Examples include the Sakai Project, Kuali, and Open Source Portfolio. Copyright for the software is often held by an independent foundation (organized as a 501c3 corporation in the United States) modeled on the contributor agreements, licensing, and distribution practices of the Apache Foundation.

An important distinctive characteristic of community source as opposed to plain open source is that the community includes some organizations or institutions that are committing their resources to the community, in the form of human resources or other financial elements. In this way, the open source project will have both more solid support, rather than purely volunteer efforts as found in other open source communities, and will possibly be shaped by the strategic requirements of the institution committing the resource.

Brad Wheeler has noted that Community Source can be understood as a hybrid model of a community like "The Pub between the Cathedral and the Bazaar” where higher education can really solve its [application] software challenges. References below provide more details regarding the use of community source as a practice in higher education.

The Community Source Model in Higher Education (Excerpt from Wheeler, 2007 in References)

The Community Source Model is a hybrid model that blends elements of directed development, in the classic sense of an organization employing staff and resources to work on a project, and the openness of traditional open-source projects like Apache. The resulting software is available under an Open Source Initiative (OSI) approved license. The code can be examined, changed, redistributed, sold, or incorporated into other products without fee. Anyone can make changes, and subject to quality review, those changes can be incorporated back into an open-source application for the benefit of all.

The distinguishing feature of the Community Source Model is that many of the investments of developers' time, design, and project governance come from institutional contributions by colleges, universities, and some commercial firms rather than from individuals. These contributions may be tendered as the first phase of a project, and then additional work may be contributed on an ongoing, voluntary basis by those institutions with a continuing interest in the project. The project often establishes a software framework and baseline functionality, and then the community develops additional features as needed over time.

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