Paper:Conclusion

From Wiki

The promise of FOSS in Africa is great, and the number of successful projects and thriving communities is ever increasing. At the same time, unique challenges faced in the African context make establishing, scaling and sustaining FOSS projects harder than in more developed contexts.

Good to Great FOSS 2007 served to capture a snapshot of the state of a diverse set of African FOSS projects. It is hoped that the details captured in this paper can be used as a benchmark against which future project and community updates can be compared.

Those wanting to undertake FOSS projects in the African context should consider the learnings shared by projects at Good to Great FOSS. At the highest level, these can be summarized as follows:

• Be mindful of the challenges face by FOSS projects in Africa. Design processes and community models appropriate for the environment, and be fault-tolerant to factors such as poor connectivity and developer attrition.

• Establish transparent and open community processes that encourage new participation and sustain environments of trust and accountability. Follow processes consistently, and make it easy and engaging for new members to get involved.

• Follow industry standard development processes built on robust and mature stacks and components. Limit risk by reusing what already works, and let successful FOSS projects and existing models inform project decisions.

• Adopt Best Practices in community development, collaboration, outreach, code architecture and tool selection to maximize indicators for success.

The good will and passion in the African FOSS community know no bound. As connectivity and other resources barriers continue to be surmounted, the great potential reflected in the current ecology of African FOSS projects will be realized and replicated across the continent.