A governance model describes the roles that project participants can take 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. It is the governance model that prevents an open source project from descending into chaos.

This talk explains why a governance model is necessary, considers some of the challenges associated with adopting a governance model in Open Source projects, and looks at the key areas such a model needs to cover. It also describes how to encapsulate your governance model in a governance document.

We go on to examine two types of governance model, which, on the surface, appear to be completely opposite to one another: the benevolent dictator model and the meritocratic model. We will discover that when applied successfully to a community-led project, these two models are, in fact, very similar and equally successful.