Collaboration and Governance of Open Source Projects
Download as PPTX, PDF2 likes1,452 views
This document discusses collaboration and governance in open source software projects. It first describes a tool called Collaboro that was developed to enable collaboration when building domain-specific languages. However, the authors note that effective collaboration requires governance. They conducted a survey that found open source contributors found governance models to be difficult to understand and that clearer models would attract more contributors. The document proposes developing a domain-specific language and decision engine to help open source projects more clearly define their governance rules to improve collaboration.
Collaboration and Governance of Open Source Projects
- 1. Collaboration and Governance in OSS projects (Preliminary work) Javier Cánovas, Jordi Cabot jordi.cabot@inria.fr http://modeling-languages.com
- 2. Background We can all agree that development is a collaboration process We didn’t see this collaboration taking place in the development of MDE artefacts (not talking about synch development) We built Collaboro, a tool to enable the collaboration of domain experts and technical people when building a DSL. See http://modeling-languages.com/enabling-the- collaborative-definition-of-dsls/ 2© AtlanMod - atlanmod-contact@mines-nantes.fr
- 3. Collaboro DSL Abstract Syntax Concepts & relationships Well-formed rules Concrete Syntax Textual Graphical Semantics Denotational Pragmatic Translational Operational
- 4. Collaboro • Providing means to discuss about language elements • Overcoming technical barriers Participation • Facilitating voting and decision processes • Keeping traceability Collaboration
- 7. Effective Collaboration requires Governance How does the community make a decision? – Majority? Unanimity? Dictatorship? – Minimal participation level? – Depending on the phase? (proposals, comments, solution) This is NOT a MDE problem – Switched to study OSS projects 7© AtlanMod - atlanmod-contact@mines-nantes.fr
- 8. How? Existing tools only store facts
- 9. OSS development 9© AtlanMod - atlanmod-contact@mines-nantes.fr Each phase implies decisions
- 10. Is governance a real challenge in OSS 10© AtlanMod - atlanmod-contact@mines-nantes.fr In a survey among OSS contributors, they said: 1. Understanding the governance model (e.g. who/when/how decides to accept a patch) was very difficult (implicit, scattered,…) 2. A clear view of this model would attract more contributors 3. They believed it was feasible to define the governance model A manual analysis of several well-known ones confirmed 1) and the extreme variability among them (also in terms of tools: forums, email,…)
- 11. Let’s help all OSS projects define their governance rules! 11© AtlanMod - atlanmod-contact@mines-nantes.fr By providing a DSL that facilitates the specification of governance rules in a “standard” format And a decision engine able to interpret and apply these rules to evolve a project status Relying on Collaboro to store the collaboration information
- 12. Governance metamodel 12© AtlanMod - atlanmod-contact@mines-nantes.fr
- 13. Example 13© AtlanMod - atlanmod-contact@mines-nantes.fr Project myProject { Roles: Committers Deadlines: myDeadline : 7 days Rules: myMajorityRule : Majority { applied to Task when TaskReview people Committers range Present minVotes 0 deadline myDeadline } }
- 14. Enforcing the rules (Optional) 14© AtlanMod - atlanmod-contact@mines-nantes.fr
- 15. Architecture 15© AtlanMod - atlanmod-contact@mines-nantes.fr
- 16. Mining governance models 16© AtlanMod - atlanmod-contact@mines-nantes.fr Taking OSS projects in GitHub Goal: get an idea of the (often implicit) popular governance models adopted Study possible correlations between the governance models and the “success” of a project – Is democracy better???
- 17. A word of caution 17© AtlanMod - atlanmod-contact@mines-nantes.fr Many OSS projects are “fake” /dead (i.e. they do not really want collaborators: backup, CV) 85% of projects have never been forked