Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference North America 2026

We all want our open source projects to be sustainable, healthy, and successful. Good governance has a much larger impact on sustainability, health, and project success than many people realize. Being proactive about governance before something escalates into a crisis can help avoid misunderstandings and make your projects more sustainable and successful.

A lightweight governance model created at the beginning of a project can provide basic guidance about roles, expectations, and decision-making processes. As the project grows and matures, governance can be expanded over time to become more robust as the project evolves. However, good governance is about more than just defining roles and decision-making processes. It can be part of the process of building a sustainable leadership pipeline and can help to create an intentional culture that encourages participation and contributions from others.

This talk will provide details about the importance of governance, how to define project governance, using governance as a pathway to leadership, creating an intentional culture, and making project ownership (e.g., individual, organization, foundation) decisions.