Mentors Fuel Growth for Open-Source Communities

Mentorship programs help people working on open-source projects build a community, make decisions and to maintain projects beyond their initial idea. Some communities use programs that require one-on-one mentorship, while others allow existing members to on-board new members at their own pace. Either way, these programs all aim to ensure the success of the projects.

The Outercurve Foundation is currently building out a mentorship program, according to Stephen Walli, the foundation’s technical director. Some of the contributors to Outercurve Foundation open-source projects, he said, don’t have experience with growing a community. This is where the mentors come in.

“A lot of our projects start with a developer or group of developers with an idea. These individuals may not know how to build a community, but they’ll publish the idea on a forge and then not know where to take the next step,” Walli said.