The FOSS ecosystem has several free and open source solutions (be it software or hardware) addressing several needs of individuals, organizations and society.
However, the prevalence of underfunding, support and maintenance for FOSS projects and people involved in it hinders development and sustainence of viable FOSS solutions for critical/need-of-the-hour requirements. This combined with lack of comprehensive public directory for critical sectors and projects make it challenging to identify, develop and support the corresponding FOSS projects.
There have been initiatives addressing the above stated issue.
- FSF has a list of high-priority projects that is worth looking into for a grasp of domains that need work.
- FLOSS/fund for supporting critical FLOSS projects.
Inspired by YCombinator’s Request for Startups, this thread aims to serve as an encouragement for you to list out the domains that are lacking in viable FOSS solutions. Some inspiration for domains are as follows:
- Finance
- Travel
- Privacy
- Accessibility
- Education
- Open hardware, firmware and drivers
- Communication
- Intelligent Agents and Assistants
- Mobile computing
Structure
For new and/or existing projects
- Project name: Name of the project or idea
- Domain: Sector which is addressed (could be any one of the above mentioned or other domains which are unlisted)
- Description: Explanation regarding the problem being solved
- Reference: Links to project, relevant research and problems being addressed.
For domains
- Domain name: Sector which is addressed (domains not mentioned in the above list), e.g., security, internationalization, etc.
- Description: Reason for specifying the domain and importance of having viable FOSS solutions addressing it
- Reference: Links to relevant research and problems faced