Results of the survey on Shibboleth futures

In 2011, the Shibboleth Consortium carried out a public consultation on the future of Shibboleth. A total of 122 responses were received in reply to the survey, showing a diverse population of users with an interest in supporting and maintaining Shibboleth.

In response to the survey, the Shibboleth Consortium made the following observations:

• There is clear support for maintaining Shibboleth as an application and there is interest from the community in providing funding to make this viable.
• The Shibboleth Consortium needs to undertake more work to distinguish between ‘customers’ and ‘influencers’ within its model.
• The Shibboleth Consortium should make a public statement about its commitment to continuing as an open-source solution.
• The Shibboleth Consortium needs to improve its communication with Stakeholders, particularly within the US.
• Shibboleth support models and documentation need improvement.
• More work is needed to make the code contribution process more coherent and open, including support for ‘seed corn’ developers and repository space for code developed elsewhere, even when not included in the core.
• Not enough consultation has been achieved with major education and research federations.

The report also made a series of recommendations on the future funding and governance model for Shibboleth.

The full text of the Consultation Review can be found on our wiki (pdf).