Open Source Ecosystem Building

🚨 The OSPO is evolving. Is yours keeping up? /* Most likely the last post on this topic in a while */ As organizations mature their oss strategies, OSPOs can no longer limit their value to compliance, contribution facilitation, and related policies, processes, and tooling. That was OSPO 1.0. It's 2025. Welcome to OSPO 2.0! The next-gen OSPO plays a much broader, more strategic role in helping organizations navigate the complexities of AI, ecosystem orchestration, developer enablement, and open innovation at scale. Here are some forward-looking areas OSPO leaders & executive sponsors should start planning for: ✅ Model governance for AI/ML: Help teams release models responsibly with the right licensing, transparency, and documentation. ✅ Open ecosystem strategy: Move from contributing to orchestrating ecosystems, including foundations, community governance, and standards participation. ✅ Developer enablement at scale: Become a partner to the platform and DevEx teams. Offer paved paths, internal OSS catalogs, and compliance-by-default tooling. Enable shift-left. ✅ Risk intelligence: Go beyond license compliance. Build signals into engineering workflows about project health, community maturity, and geopolitical risk. ✅ Global policy engagement: Interpret emerging regulations like the EU CRA/ AI Act/DMA , OSS mandates in China (Xinchuang/PIPL/DSL), US's Executive Orders (EO 14028), and advise on their impact on your strategy & products. ✅ Metrics & evidence-based or evidence-driven strategy: Use CHAOSS or other tools to create internal dashboards measuring OSS impact, maturity, and sustainability. 🎯 Next steps for OSPOs wanting to evolve: To be practical, here are a few suggestions on steps to take to start shifting from OSPO 1.0 to 2.0: ☑️ Set up an organizational cross-functional WG on open source and AI, figure out your position concerning Open Source Initiative (OSI)'s Open Source AI Definition (review & provide feedback), and the newly released The Linux Foundation OpenMDW 1.0 license (related post: https://lnkd.in/eg8GY8Y9). ☑️ Audit your current OSS footprint for gaps in tooling, model transparency, and project health ☑️ Map open source to your platform engineering strategy (where's the value line, where should you max your contributions) ☑️ Build policy awareness into OSPO reviews: AI, SBOM, regional compliance ☑️ Be on top of any updates to or new policies/regulations and how they affect your open source efforts OSPO 2.0 is a strategic enabler of trust, transparency, and technical leverage in a world increasingly shaped by open AI and software ecosystems. 📩 If you’re exploring how to evolve your OSPO or build one with these priorities, I’d be happy to connect. 👉 If this resonates, feel free to share it with others in your network. #OSPO #OpenSource TODO (OSPO) Group The Linux Foundation Linux Foundation Europe Linux Foundation Japan OpenChain Project SPDX SBOM CHAOSS Shuchi Sharma - following on our convo re: OSPO 2.0

Building momentum in any ecosystem—whether it's a business network, community, or partner ecosystem—requires both strategic alignment and practical activation. Most importantly, it needs someone to drive as the organizer/activator. Here's my framework for creating lasting momentum: 1. Clarify the Shared Purpose  Momentum comes from a compelling vision that stakeholders can see themselves as a part of. Define the collective "why"—what outsized impact can you create together that no single participant could achieve alone? 2. Start Small, Show Proof Don't try to boil the ocean. Launch small, visible projects that demonstrate value. Early wins attract more participants and build confidence in the ecosystem's potential. 3. Build Trust and Reciprocity Ecosystems thrive on mutual benefit. Create opportunities for knowledge sharing, co-marketing, and joint projects. Trust builds momentum faster than transactions—partnership = trust + true collaboration. 4. Enable Network Effects Structure so each new participant adds disproportionate value. Don't demand the same level of participation from everyone—tailor approaches to individual skills. The method of organization matters: How do people communicate, share resources, and ask questions? 5. Orchestrate, Don't Control This is such a unique and critical role. Provide lightweight governance—guide, convene, facilitate connections—but leave room for organic growth. Let people self-identify where they see themselves in the ecosystem. 6. Create Visibility and Buzz Celebrate milestones, share collaboration stories, and spotlight members. Momentum is social—people want to be part of something others are talking about. Communication is key. 7. Sustain Through Value Loops Participants give because they see value returned. Continuously measure and communicate the value each group receives, including leads, cost savings, learning opportunities, and social impact. The result? A flywheel effect where clarity of purpose, quick wins, trust, network effects, and continuous value loops create lasting ecosystem momentum. #EcosystemBuilding #CommunityBuilding #Leadership

💡 It’s been over 10 years since I tried to help a country in #LatinAmerica implement #CKAN through an open tender — only to discover that no consulting firm had the expertise to do it. Too often, open-source solutions are expected to be implemented by an “in-house team” that, in practice, lacks the mandate or resources to sustain them. So moving from “I have a proprietary solution and I am the only one to implement it” to “I have an open-source solution and you are the only one who can implement it” is real progress — but still not enough. What we really need is an active #TechEcosystem of reliable implementation partners. CKAN now has many, but for other #DPGs this is still missing. And nothing accelerates this more than: ✅ Great documentation ✅ Intentional ecosystem-building ✅ Well-designed tenders That’s how we’ll make open source truly sustainable.

We decided to build an open-source project and here are a few tips that helped us grow and get huge companies like Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and Google to use and promote our product. 1. Organic reach: we published the project everywhere we could, and repeated that. Hacker News seemed to be the best place to get that first momentum. Yes, the website looks like it was taken from the 90s, but you'd be surprised at how many industry leaders are reading through posts there on a daily basis. Also worked well for us are dedicated Reddit communities, and to some extend Twitter/X. 2. Friendly Experience: we made our OSS friendly for first-time contributors from day 1. We opened around 10 issues in the repository with various degrees of complexity, tagged some with "good first issue" so that GitHub search engine can index our repo and opened a community slack workspace so people can ask questions or request guidance easily. 3. Quick Response: we monitored our open-source activity closely. We set up Zappier integrations so we get notified whenever someone opened an issue or a PR on the repo - so we can respond quickly. The first few contributors are looking for a quick feedback and may quickly abandon your project if they don't see maintainer activity. Community: we actively engaged with the community. We arranged webinars, answered questions, and were quick to fix bugs that were opened. This helped gain the trust that we need to make this succeed. Building and maintaining an open-source requires constant dedication of time and effort. But once you do it right, it’s a great way to get exposure to what you’re building. What is your story? How do you grow your open-source projects?