Open Source Maintenance Management

Open source code is community managed.

Open source projects are based on freely available source code that is managed through community sites. These sites allow community members to download binaries and source code. They also allow community members to post suggestions, fixes and bugs for the primary developers.

Bug Tracking

Programs inevitably have problems or, as they are known in the programming world, bugs. Community project sites such as SourceForge allow users to participate in the maintenance process by reporting problems that have with the software. Developers then include this information in writing program updates.

Code Management

While anyone can download and modify the source code for open source projects, not every edit can be integrated into the official project source code. Projects will have administrators, who are the only ones who can change the "official" source code files. Volunteer programmers submit source code to the administrators for possible inclusion.

Documentation

Not every contribution to open source projects take the form of computer code. All programs need user instructions or documentation, which non-programmers can write. These products are submitted to project administrators, who may include on the site or in the official downloads.

References

• SourceForge Documentation: Project Control
• OSS Watch: The Community Source Development Model