Create governance.md

Author: fioddor

governance/governance.md

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+# Governance
+
+According to the Business Dictionary, governance is defined as:
+
+> _Establishment of policies, and continuous monitoring
+> of their proper implementation, by the members of the
+> governing body of an organization. It includes the
+> mechanisms required to balance the powers of the
+> members (with the associated accountability), and
+> their primary duty of enhancing the prosperity and
+> viability of the organization_
+
+In open source, governance is described in the "governance
+model" document, defined by OSSWatch[^1] as:
+
+> _A governance model describes the roles that project participants 
+> can take on and the process for decision making within the project. 
+> In addition, it describes the ground rules for participation in the 
+> project and the processes for communicating and sharing within 
+> the project team and community_
+
+Usually the governance model is a written document containing:
+
+-  project goals
+-  work, management and collaboration infrastructures definition
+-  people roles and responsibilities definitions
+-  community support mechanisms
+-  decision making process policies description
+-  contribution process policies description
+-  monitoring policies and mechanisms description
+
+
+# Govenance Standards/Models
+
+There are some initiatives describing what good corporate open
+source governance means. The most mature one is the _Good Governance
+Initiative_ by the OSPO Alliance, which  has already released the
+first version (v1) of its framework.
+
+Coming versions of this framework are expected to consider
+InnerSource as a corporate practice managed by the Open Source
+Program Office (OSPO).
+
+In the shared spirit of reusing materials, we'll avoid overlapping
+and focus here on a pure InnerSource case where no formal corporate
+management of open source exists yet.
+
+The GGI proposes 5 goals to structure 5 governance activities for
+each of them.
+
+All GGI goals for open source governance apply with minor tweaks to
+our pure InnerSource case:
+
+- Goal 1: Foster **usage** of InnerSource software
+- Goal 2: **Build trust** around InnerSource
+- Goal 3: **Spread** the (InnerSource) **culture**
+- Goal 4: **Engage** with the (InnerSource) **community**
+- Goal 5: **Make InnerSource Strategic** for the organization
+
+There will be differences in the context that will cause an
+adaptation.
+
+## Foster usage of InnerSource software
+
+InnerSource-developed software might suffer from the same kind of
+distrust open source has. Usage is the base: don't expect
+contributions without users. And the borders applying to
+InnerSource limit the audience, so this can become challenging for
+small or varied corporations.
+
+### Activities
+
+InnerSource will have a greater need for software inventories due
+to the findability problem.
+
+InnerSource practices are mostly the same as open source ones,
+so the skillset is basically the same, with some specifics:
+- In our focused case, familiarity with usual open source
+  products is not needed.
+- InnerSource usually deploys to a single instance. Then, the
+  needed scope for deployment training might be narrowed down.
+- Motivation: InnerSource is less sexy than open source, and the
+  pool of possible contributors is smaller. Motivation is more
+  challenging and needs more effort and skill.
+
+InnerSource-specific topics will need attention:
+- Transfer pricing doesn't apply to open source but use to be a
+  barrier for corporations operating in different fiscal
+  jurisdictions.
+- Heavily outsourced development scenarios might require focusing
+  competency growth on product owners, if there are scant
+  developers inhouse.
+
+InnerSource supervision ought to focus on different questions:
+a) Purpose: controlling the redundant developments and ensuring
+   InnerSource software is proactively managed.
+b) Push/promote integrating InnerSource components and
+   contributing upstream.
+c) Identify where InnerSource are de-facto or critical solutions
+   and assess suitability (avoid InnerSource monoliths).
+
+There's usually no need to curate enterprise-grade InnerSource
+software or to manage open source software development skills and
+resources (GGI activities 1.4 and 1.5.
+
+In exchange, software and documentation findability are
+challenging because public search engines usually don't work
+inside corporate borders.
+
+## Build trust around InnerSource
+
+Building trust means dealing with fears, uncertainty, and doubts
+(FUD). The usual sources for FUD are:
+
+  - **Legal context**, because most participants usually are
+    unaware of the relevant details.
+  - **Security**, mainly due to the not-invented here (MIH)
+    syndrome. In fact having the source code available ought to
+    help building trust by enabling auditability, and shifting
+    some testing from back-box to white-box.
+  - **Internal context**, specifically in organizations where the
+    InnerSource initiative sponsorship is limited.
+
+### Activities
+
+InnerSource has its specific legal challenges:
+ - InnerSource license. This might change in the future, but for
+   the moment, in contrast to open source, there are no public
+   InnerSource licenses for reference.
+ - Transfer pricing, for corporations operating in several fiscal
+   jurisdictions.
+ - Export control. The same is needed for any kind of software
+   licensing schema. But InnerSource has better options for control
+   than open source since it's privative software and all of its
+   development happens in-house.
+
+Managing vulnerabilities is slightly better under InnerSource, and
+way worse than in open source: There are dependencies on privative
+software and services (usually avoided in open source but quite usual
+in InnerSource).
+
+Dependency management needs to take care of both:
+ - Internal InnerSource dependencies
+ - Dependencies on privative software and services (usually
+   avoided in open source but usual in InnerSource).
+
+The internal context is a source of concerns. The specific set of
+concerns depends very much on each organization and vary a lot, but
+the individual concerns are usually shared with other organizations.
+For that reason, the InnerSource Commons collects
+[patterns](https://github.com/InnerSourceCommons/InnerSourcePatterns),
+so solutions can be reused, either as they are or as inspiration for
+a local variant.
+
+Metrics tend to help provide trust.
+
+But the corporate motivation for embracing InnerSource might be
+different (silo breakage, etc) and independent of approaching
+open source. These local differences totally affect the metrics
+architecture. See the
+[metrics pattern](https://github.com/InnerSourceCommons/InnerSourcePatterns/blob/main/patterns/1-initial/introducing-metrics-in-innersource.md)
+published by InnerSource Commons.
+
+## Spread the (InnerSource) culture
+
+The InnerSource culture is the same as the open source one.
+It collects a set of best practices that can be roughly
+summarized as:
+ - **contributing upstream** and
+ - taking the **human** nature of participants into account.
+
+### Activities
+
+The activities for spreading the InnerSource culture are basically
+the same as with open source as well, so the GGI standard applies
+as-is, with the usual local adaptations.
+
+Usually, going InnerSource is an intermediate step for corporations
+with open-source unfriendly culture to approach open source.
+In such cases spreading the culture will pose a serious challenge
+but less than going full open source.
+
+Cases of organizations targeting pure InnerSource can be legit or
+not.
+Some organizations want to get the benefits of InnerSource
+by adopting cherry-picked open source procedures and lore, but
+without actually practicing InnerSource. Step away from such cases,
+as this most likely won't work!
+Legit pure InnerSource embraces its culture as a fundamental piece
+of the framework.
+
+## Foster engagement with the (InnerSource) community
+
+Under open source, a sense of belonging to any local community
+smoothly transitions into the global community. The feeling crosses
+formal boundaries the same way the software does.
+
+In InnerSource there's also a global community. (In fact, it is an
+open source one, but that's another tale to be told on other
+occasions).
+
+But in contrast to open source, while the global InnerSource
+community shares information and resources, they do **not** share
+**their InnerSource production***. The presence of boundaries for
+the InnerSource production becomes thus very present and remarks
+the separation between the local community and the global one.
+
+### Activities
+
+As part of the open source spirit in which InnerSource roots,
+organizations are encouraged to engage with special interest groups
+(SIG's) beyond their borders, and in particular with the global
+InnerSource community.
+
+Publicly asserting one's InnerSource practice and showcasing related
+experiences may make sense or not that much depending on the context
+of the corporation. Goals that benefit from such external engagement
+include:
+
+ - Plans to go open source in the future,
+ - InnerSource as hiring motivator
+
+Engagement with the internal community is a fundamental part of
+InnerSource. But as users of software of other teams, it is in
+self-interest to secure long term support or knowledge transfer
+from upstream. The
+[code-consumers pattern](https://github.com/InnerSourceCommons/InnerSourcePatterns/blob/main/patterns/1-initial/code-consumers.md)
+is related to this.
+
+Usually, there's scant or no need for internal InnerSource
+[purchase policies](https://ospo-alliance.org/ggi/activities/open_source_procurement_policy/)
+but if needed, it is a natural task for the InnerSource Program
+Office  (ISPO).
+
+## Make InnerSource Strategic for the organization
+
+Most times, InnerSource is a corporate cultural transformation. Such
+changes need time to overcome previous inertia and even longer to
+stabilize and become mainstream.
+
+Some bottom-up InnerSource initiatives die or languish after an
+initial unsuccessful push or because other priorities drain the
+attention before the cultural shift stabilizes.
+
+Making InnerSource strategic for the organization is the way to
+ensure its provided value is perceived as such.
+
+### Activities
+
+Ensure you design your InnerSource initiative and its implementation
+to feature important long-term corporate goals like innovation,
+digital sovereignty, and digital transformation. Think of your
+organization and its context and find other goals InnerSource may
+contribute towards. Then communicate it and get as much air cover
+from your executives as you can.