March 2022; Updated March 2023 and April 2023 to reflect features added via this fund and additional anticipated features; Updated October 2023
New Fall/Winter 2023-24 Accessibility Audit and Remediation Funding Campaign for DSpace 7 Thank you DSpace Accessibility Champions! |
In March 2022, DSpace launched the DSpace Development Fund to build on previous fundraising efforts that directly supported paid development for DSpace.
The DSpace Development Fund builds on a successful fundraising campaign that began in 2020 to accelerate development for version 7.0, a major milestone in the history of DSpace. Largely through generous contributions from member institutions, DSpace was able to invest more than $300,000 in targeted development to enable the accelerated release of DSpace 7 in August 2021 and several subsequent point releases. We gratefully recognize the institutions who generously contributed financially to support the DSpace 7 staged release program, and individuals who devoted time to fundraising.
For nearly 20 years, DSpace relied exclusively on volunteers to contribute code for DSpace. To ensure our ambitious 7.0 goals could be met, DSpace governance approved a plan to directly fund development work for DSpace 7. By funding the development work, DSpace Governance could more predictably stage releases, and better maintain community oversight of the development outcomes. While contributions from volunteers are very welcome and help tremendously with the development of DSpace, the funded development work brought DSpace to a completely new level.
Contributions to the DSpace Development Fund help support features prioritized by DSpace Leadership. The features and functionality we are currently seeking to fund include an accessibility audit of DSpace and paid development to remediate accessibility issues.
And these are just some of the features. For more details, you can also see our development priorities and track progress via the GitHub boards where you can see all tiers and release boards.
Here are some ways you or your institution can support DSpace Development Fund:
Contact us at DSpaceDonations@lyrasis.org if you would like to know more and contribute.
DSpace continues to grow and evolve to support open repositories because of generous contributions of time and resources by the global DSpace community. Please consider contributing to help us maintain this critical development work and to enhance the software you use.
DSpace is excited to share that since we launched the DSpace Development Fund, members of the worldwide DSpace community have contributed to supporting continued funded development for DSpace, the software of choice for academic, non-profit, and commercial organizations building open digital repositories.
These contributions directly support software development of key features prioritized by the DSpace community.
DSpace gratefully acknowledges the following organizations for their contributions to the DSpace Development Fund.
Harvard Libraries
MIT Libraries