2017 Microservices Practitioner Virtual Summit: How to Avoid Creating a GitHub Junkyard - Lauri Apple
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The document discusses strategies to prevent the creation of unnecessary GitHub repositories (referred to as 'junkyards') by emphasizing the need for thoughtful maintenance and contributing practices in open source projects. It highlights Zalando's journey from chaotic code management to a more structured approach that prioritizes quality, community engagement, and sustainable practices. Key takeaways include the importance of understanding the purpose behind contributions, fostering collaboration, and implementing guidelines to enhance project visibility and clarity.
2017 Microservices Practitioner Virtual Summit: How to Avoid Creating a GitHub Junkyard - Lauri Apple
- 1. HOW TO AVOID CREATING A GITHUB JUNKYARD LAURI APPLE, ZALANDO
- 2. On the Menu ● Intro ● Asking Why Before Hitting Publish ● Building Junkyards: A Case Study ● Cleaning Up: The Big Dig ● Closing: Status report, learnings
- 3. About You ● Managing a GitHub org? ● GH manager at company? ● Do OSS b/c fun? ● Proud workaholic?
- 4. About Me ● Agile producer (coach+PM) ● OSS Evangelist for 1700+ techs ● Open Org Ambassador (Red Hat) Primary Projects: ● LappleApple/Feedmereadmes: README help, project advice, maturity model ● LappleApple/awesome-leading-and-managing
- 5. ● 15 countries ● 20+ million active customers ● ~3.6 billion € net sales ● 200,000+ products ● 12,000+ employees ● 200+ million visits/month About Zalando
- 7. ● Polyglot, poly-org (four) ● Big on infra, APIs ● Maturing: quality over quantity Zalando.github.io
- 8. Why We Open Source ● Personal development ● Give back ● Improve quality ● Reputation ● Recruitment
- 9. But Why Do We OSS? ● Motivations? ● Why this way? ● Why make so much ourselves? ● Is it sustainable? — Kind? — A burden? https://www.flickr.com/photos/ksayer/5614813544/
- 10. Why I Ask Why Print Journalism Online Blogging Craftsmanship, relationships Speed, volume, anonymity Limited space Unlimited space Best editors were hardest Editor also time-crunched
- 11. Software Hamsters ● Busy = status symbol ○ Fun ○ Heroism ○ Pressure ● Burns us out ○ Multitasking -10 IQ points (Levitin) ● http://www.talenteconomy.io/2017/05/04/busy-now-status-symbol-needs-stop/ ● https://www.flickr.com/photos/haundreis/2760350708
- 13. Asked a Colleague Q: Do you actually enjoy maintaining all that stuff? A: That’s a hard question Should it be hard?
- 14. Asked Another Colleague Q: What if GitHub charged per repo? A: “LOL … we would change a bunch of things” Why not change the things now, voluntarily?
- 15. OSS Isn’t Really Free ● Cost: maintenance, goodwill, perspective ● Craftsmanship suffers ● “Throwaway” aspect ● If no one editing => GitHub junkyard
- 17. https://www.flickr.com/photos/hugo90/5116732240/ Building Junkyards: A Case Study
- 18. 2008-2015: Command & Control
- 19. We Made a Little FOSS Octocat: “I’m still hungry”
- 20. Switch to Autonomy/Mastery/Purpose Model ● Autonomous teams ● Open Source First ● Choose your stack ● Share your code (and do other stuff, but ...) ● Share we did
- 21. Our GitHub Release Cycle
- 22. Jan 2016: 400 projects ● Open sourcing all the things ● “Coding in the open”: Z-specific ● Didn’t know what we had ● Compulsive release cycle ● Not asking why/what value
- 23. Our GitHub Junkyard: Lots of Dogs ● Not friendly ● Quality varied ● Stability unclear ● Missing docs, tests, files ● Not responding to PRs
- 24. How We Were Building OSS
- 25. High Friction Was Our Aesthetic ● Works well, but ... ● Lots of moving parts/onboarding ● Value hidden ● Team realized it eventually ● Now: deprecating
- 26. ● GitHub charged? ● Asked community? ● More time? ● Thought about costs? Would We Have Build It This Way If...
- 27. ● Want new, novel ● Pressures ● “No time” ● “Might be useful” ● Nostalgia ● “True OSS = share everything” https://www.flickr.com/photos/daveseven/6044653558 We Don’t Plan Junkyards
- 28. Harsh OSS Ecosystems :(
- 29. Finding theCleaning up: The Big Dig https://www.flickr.com/photos/inetflash/ Goals: ● Apply basic storytelling ● Craftsmanship focus ● Sustainability, less is more Rare chance to shape culture at mega-scale
- 30. Takes a While, and Requires Care What’s Fast: ○ Guidelines ○ Templates ○ New orgs What’s Slow: ○ Craftsman mindset ○ Culture shift ○ Trust-building https://www.flickr.com/photos/elephantom/391190
- 31. Guidelines: Minimum Viable Process
- 32. Supporting Resources ● Templates: README, product, .md files ● Guidance for asking why, what, how ● Recycled https://github.com/zalando/zalando-howto-open-source
- 33. Organize Repos
- 34. Craftsmanship Coaching ● Discipline => freedom ● Avoid burnout ● Optimize ● Plan ● Customers ● Are we solving problems? For whom?
- 35. 1.5 Years In ... ● 55 repos ● More “why” ● Community-oriented ● Project discovery ● Archiving to GHE ● Nike, Starbucks ● Tests, docs, files ● Incubator: from +8 pages to 1.5
- 37. Craftsmanship Habits Take Time ● “Put it on GitHub” = done ● MVP: No != Not Yet ● FOMO ● Complying != not intrinsic Motivation ● Dreaming bigger https://www.flickr.com/photos/26675187@N03/5466550549
- 38. Getting Friendlier Over Time ● READMEs help to ... ○ Managing expectations better ○ ETA for responses to PRs ○ Build status ○ Clarity about plans ○ If working software not the goal, can say so
- 39. Getting Leads/Heads Buy-in ● Delivery pressure ● Don’t always analyze “busy” ● Product mindset not for all ● Delegation ● Technical debt: something to complain about, not fix
- 40. Need Maturity Model Mindset ● OSS strategy ● Incubator cleanup ● Peer Review Group ● Mgmt support ● Community non-negotiable ● Training, coaching
- 41. Closing Tips ● 1. Clean up, don’t wait ● 2. New? Start now ● 3. Ask why ● 4. Don’t make cleanup your burden ○ Slack ○ Keep it simple
- 42. “The moment a new contributor posts a PR or a draft patch, a timer starts. The longer maintainers take to respond to their submission, the lower the chance that person will ever contribute to the project again.” — @fuzzychef And then you might have a junkyard https://community.redhat.com/blog/2017/04/ contributors-speed-matters/ Please Respond to People
- 43. Thanks! ● Zalando.github.io ● github.com/lappleapple/feedmereadmes ● @lauritaapplez ● lauri.apple@zalando.de