IEEE Computer Society Open Source Software Project Governance PAR Study Group Kickoff Meeting

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The IEEE Computer Society Standards Activity Board Standards Committee (C/SAB SC) has approved a Project Authorization Request (PAR) Study Group to determine if there’s enough interest to develop a recommended practice for open source software project governance.

In the IEEE Standards Association (SA), a PAR Study Group is the predecessor to a standards development working group. The PAR Study Group will meet over the next few months to gauge interest, discuss and develop a scope, and prepare a PAR form.

Stephen Walli is the PAR Study Group Chair. To set expectations, recommended practices describe a preferred method, predominantly using “shoulds” rather than mandatory requirements that use “shalls”. This is an attempt to collect together the common terminology and recognized practices from the past quarter century into a document that will provide a basic framework to help people interested in developing open source projects.

The intention of this recommended practice and working group will not be debating the Open Source Definition, or recommending specific licenses, or debating business practices and business models or intellectual property (IP) policies.

The first meeting of the Open Source Software Project Governance PAR Study Group (OSSPG SG) will be Wednesday, 9 February at 11:00 ET (17:00 CET, 08:00 PT) for 2 hours. The initial meeting will provide an overview of the IEEE SA standards development process, ensure people understand the IEEE SA intellectual property policies, and begin to lay out the plan for the next meetings.

Everyone is welcome to participate.