This is a crosspost from URSSI Blog on Official Website of the US Research Software Sustaiability Institute, Recent content in URSSI Blog on Official Website of the US Research Software Sustaiability Institute. See the original post here.
When asked how they plan to sustain their software, many (naïve) software developers will say that they plan to make it open source. And that’s often their whole plan. There is an assumption that the mere act of exposing the software to the public will create a community who are able and willing to contribute to the support, maintenance, and perhaps the enhancement of the software product. Those who have more experience observing how open source software works will realize that it is very rare for a project to reap significant benefits from the broader community.