Schumacher: Seven Lessons of Open Source Governance

On his blog, Cornelius Schumacher writes about some lessons he's learned about governance in nearly 20 years of experience with open-source projects. "Governance is important. Your project does have a governance model even if you don't think about it or if you don't write down the rules. It governs how your project will work and how people will be able to collaborate. It will also define a big part of your culture. You don't want to leave these things to chance. So be conscious about governance.That doesn't mean that you have to write rules and policies for everything. Often a healthy culture where people learn by following the example of the leaders and other members of the community works well. It might be tempting to create a formal structure to cover all [kinds] of possible scenarios. But creating and maintaining policies is an expensive process. Don't be formal where you are not sure it's needed."