Open source software (OSS) forms the backbone of industrial data workflows and enterprise systems. However, many OSS projects face operational risks due to informal or centralized governance. This paper presents a practical case study of data.table, a high-performance R package widely adopted in production analytics pipelines, which underwent a community-led governance reform to address scalability and sustainability concerns. Before the reform, data.table faced a growing backlog of unresolved issues and open pull requests, unclear contributor pathways, and bottlenecks caused by reliance on a single core maintainer. In response, the community initiated a redesign of its governance structure. In this paper, we evaluated the impact of this transition through a mixed-methods approach, combining a contributor survey (n=17) with mining project repository data. Our results show that following the reform, the project experienced a 200% increase in new contributor recruitment, a drop in pull request resolution time from over 700 days to under a week, and a 3x increase in contributor retention. Community sentiment improved around transparency, onboarding, and project momentum, though concerns around fairness and conflict resolution remain. This case study provides practical guidance for maintainers, companies, and foundations seeking to enhance OSS governance.

翻译：开源软件（OSS）构成了工业数据工作流和企业系统的支柱。然而，许多开源软件项目因非正式或集中化的治理模式而面临运营风险。本文以高性能R包data.table为实践案例进行研究，该包在生产分析流程中被广泛采用，并通过社区主导的治理改革解决了可扩展性和可持续性问题。改革前，data.table面临日益增多的未解决问题和待处理拉取请求、模糊的贡献者参与路径，以及依赖单一核心维护者导致的瓶颈。为此，社区启动了治理结构的重新设计。本文通过混合方法评估了这一转变的影响，结合贡献者调查（n=17）与项目仓库数据挖掘。结果显示，改革后项目的新贡献者招募数量增长了200%，拉取请求解决时间从超过700天缩短至一周以内，贡献者留存率提升了3倍。社区在透明度、新人引导和项目发展势头方面的情绪有所改善，但公平性和冲突解决机制仍存担忧。本案例研究为寻求改进开源软件治理的维护者、企业和基金会提供了实践指导。