The CHAOSS Working Group on OSS Funding Impacts aims to develop frameworks, metrics, and methodologies for measuring and understanding the impacts of funding on open source software development. The group will bring together researchers, developers, funders, and policymakers to create practical tools and approaches for evaluating funding outcomes.
The open source community increasingly recognizes funding as critical for project sustainability, yet measuring funding impacts remains challenging. Does it make a meaningful difference in project security and sustainability? Does it contribute to healthier communities? Does it foster long-term resilience and technological diversity? This working group will bring together diverse stakeholders to develop standardized approaches for evaluating how funding influences and supports open source projects and developer communities.
- Foster collaboration between researchers, practitioners, and funders on the topic of open source funding, impacts, and/or measurement
- Develop standardized frameworks and metrics for measuring economic, social, and technological impacts of open source funding
- Create guidelines and tools to measure or evaluate the impacts of open source funding
- Document and share best practices across different types of open source projects and funding models
- Build an evidence base of effective funding approaches for different contexts or needs
- Create a knowledge base of resources for recommended reading on the topic of open source funding, impacts, and/or measurement
- Contribute to broader discussions about the production and sustainability of critical open source projects
- We meet every other week over Zoom, and meeting details can by found on the CHAOSS Calendar
- Agenda/Meeting-Minutes
- Join us in the #wg-funding-impact channel within the CHAOSS Slack Workspace (invite link to join CHAOSS Slack).
Contribution guidelines can be found in the CHAOSS Community CONTRIBUTING.MD.
We follow the CHAOSS Code of Conduct.
- Develop and refine metrics for measuring funding impacts
- Create documentation and guidelines for measuring funding impacts
- Develop tools for data collection and analysis (e.g. scripts, Jupyter notebooks)
- Build relationships between funders, researchers, and open source communities
- Maintain knowledge base of relevant resources (e.g. papers, reports, talks)
- Review case studies to identify patterns and lessons learned
- Host discussions with invited speakers from funded projects and funders
- Contribute findings to broader CHAOSS community and policy discussions
MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.