FOSSY 2025 Wrap Up: Igor Steinmacher “Lessons from a Decade of Open Source Sustainability Research”

Igor Steinmacher walked through lessons learned from a decade of OSS research for our 9th talk of the Science of Community Track. He explored long-term sustainability challenges in FOSS communities, including onboarding, maintainer burnout, and governance. He presented interventions like mentorship strategies, structured contribution paths, and the use of LLMs to support contributors and scale community engagement. Through case studies and longitudinal data, he offered a holistic vision for building more inclusive, resilient, and human-centered open source ecosystems.

This is the 9th of our 11 part series sharing highlights from the Science of Community track at FOSSY 2025. Visit the FOSSY site for bio details and a full abstract.