I would first like to reiterate that projects struggling with any aspect of setting up an open source project should contact OSS Watch with your questions (contact info on the about us page of http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk). We are, in most cases, happy to come and visit your project (at our cost) to discuss your specific concerns.

With respect to OSS Watch choosing the “best solution” when we chose Google Code for Simal, it is worth pointing out that we have not yet decided that Google Code is the best solution. OSS Watch is a learning team, we already have experience of a number of other hosting environments, however, we do not yet have experience of Google Code. Hosting Simal there is an experiment that will allow us to evaluate its functionality. it is not an endorsement of the facility (although we are happy so far).

Another interesting aspect of Google Code which is, as you say, closed source, is that it is a service that Google have built from a considerable number of open source projects. Google are very active within the open source communities that their services depend on. They are a good example of a sensible partnership between closed source, commercial systems and open source projects.

Finally, to your question, can community be applied to a short project such as the JISC projects?

You are right, this is something that OSS Watch is considering. One thing that I personally believe that yes, it can scale. All projects start small and some build from there (many do not). I see no reason why JISC projects should be any different.

However, there is another factor involved here. Cash, or more accurately the source of that cash.

When a project is started up by a commercial organisation they have some long term plan for the work. One would assume there is a need for it within the company and that they will continue to support it for this reason.

For JISC projects this is somewhat different. These projects start up because a potential user base has been identified and the JISC provide money to try and satisfy that users needs. When this money runs out the project team move on to other things. There is often no incentive for the project team to stick around and therefore no incentive to support a fledgling community.

This is the problem that I find hard to address. At this time I believe that the solution is in creating some kind of incubator in which we can take promising looking projects and continue to build the community around that work.

The good news is that I’ve spoken to a number of people in the JISC about this. There seems to be a considerable desire to address this and OSS Watch are actively attempting to formulate recommendations. We look forward to working with Paul (and his UKOLN colleagues), the JISC and existing JISC projects in trying to address this problem.