It has been proposed that the GÉANT Associaiton create a Software Greenhouse to support community open source projects.  The idea is that projects or consortia can ask the GÉANT Association to handle administrative functions such as payments, bookkeeping, etc., on a cost-recovery basis. 

The software greenhouse would be purely administrative support, leaving software development, governance, and strategy to the projects supported.

At NORDUnet and in the Nordic NRENs we fully support the creation of such a function.  Administration, payment, finances, and so on is traditionally a challenge for community open source function, and having a trusted third party manage this will raise the confidence of everyone involved.  We see it as useful for the European R&E community – through its GÉANT instrument – to support community open source projects in this way.

We have summarized our position and recommended actions (as of Q4 2015) for the GÉANT software greenhouse initiative in the attached note.