Creating an Open Source Project in a Proprietary Industry

Creating a new project is doubly challenging when the target industry has proprietary software as the norm. Taking code written as closed source and building a community around it is never easy, but i …

Creating a new project is doubly challenging when the target industry has proprietary software as the norm. Taking code written as closed source and building a community around it is never easy, but it’s even more difficult when none of the developers have participated in Open Source projects before. Such is the story of SRT (Secure Reliable Transport), an Open Source protocol that has taken the TV contribution world by storm. This is the story of how we helped Haivision take its internally built SRT protocol and helped make it the main player in low latency transport of video.I’ll explain the kind of things that we had to take care of when creating a new Open Source project. Starting with an evaluation of existing software, are we pointlessly re-inventing the wheel? Followed by a plan for a community, with an appropriate choice of license, a governance model, a communication and collaboration infrastructure. And last, but not least, a solid commitment from the main sponsor.