Open research requires skills that Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) developers have been cultivating for decades and that have made them successful in building their communities and business models. Discussing in public, creating inclusive communities, developing governance models suitable for community-driven projects, securing funding are all skills FLOSS developers require to sustain their software projects.

These skills are equally needed in open research, when it is not merely understood as open access, but it is conceived as an effort to create communities of practice that overcome geographical, disciplinary, and social boundaries. Developing these skills in open research, however, is still work in progress. For instance, peer review, which is a mainstay of research, usually continues to take place behind closed doors and involves a limited number of actors rather than the entire community with risks of fraud and knowledge gatekeeping. Similarly, open research networks struggle to be as inclusive as FLOSS projects. Participation is traditionally determined by institutional affiliations and funding, and citizen science contributions are often neglected because they do not fit into the scheme of traditional scholarly knowledge. Robust governance models and long-term funding strategies are also lacking in open research in many cases.

The talk is a personal reflection based on my experience working in research data management and engaging in my free time with open-source projects and volunteer-based initiatives to promote coding literacy. At times when AI-generated code is marketed as the only possible future of software, including research software, my reflection focuses instead on the human skills and shared values underpinning software development in FLOSS communities, why I consider them a precious asset, and why I hope they will continue to exist and fully transfer into open research.