LCNA14: How to run a Collaborative Project
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Lars Kurth, the community manager for the Xen Project and a member of the advisory board, discusses the rapid growth of open-source software projects, which have increased significantly from 2007 to 2015. He highlights the challenges faced by the community, including maintaining contributor engagement, review times, and vendor collaboration, while promoting the need for effective mentoring to foster new contributors. The talk emphasizes creating a balanced relationship between businesses and open-source communities to enhance participation and trust.
![[1] bit.do/optionvalue](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/lcna14howtorunacollaborativeproject-140820165050-phpapp02/85/LCNA14-How-to-run-a-Collaborative-Project-9-320.jpg)
![Bruce Schneier
Internationally renowned security Technologist
@Bruce_Schneier
Catastrophic is the right word
[for Heartbleed]. On the scale
of 1 to 10, this is an 11.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/lcna14howtorunacollaborativeproject-140820165050-phpapp02/85/LCNA14-How-to-run-a-Collaborative-Project-17-320.jpg)
LCNA14: How to run a Collaborative Project
- 1. Lars Kurth Community Manger, Xen Project Chairman, Xen Project Advisory Board Director, Open Source Business Office, Citrix lars_kurth
- 2. Was a contributor to various projects Worked in parallel computing, tools, mobile and now virtualization Community guy at Symbian Foundation Learned how NOT to do stuff Community guy for the Xen Project Working for Citrix Member of OSS Business Office Accountable to Xen Project Advisory Board Chairman of Xen Project Advisory Board
- 3. Source: The 2014 Future of Open Source Survey Result
- 4. The # of Projects is growing rapidly 2007: 0.2M projects Today: 1.0M projects, 100Billion LOC, 10M contributors 2015: 1.8M projects John Morgan @ Flickr Simon & His Camera @ Flickr Kumar Appaiah @ Flickr
- 5. 50% of all enterprises adopt OSS software Julian Manson @ Flickr
- 6. 30% of companies make it easy for employees to contribute to projects Influencing a project’s direction is one of the main reason for contributing Nick @ Flickr toffehoff @ Flickr
- 14. 2001: Open Sourced by IBM 2001 – 2003: Growth from 8 to 80 consortia members 2006: Callisto 10 projects, 260 committers 2004: Eclipse Foundation 2011: 10th Birthday 273 projects, 1057 committers, 50+ MLOC, 174 members (see bit.do/Eclipse-10) More projects/products/users, improved process, improved option value/modularity, … …
- 15. Tragedy of the Commons (sort of) Moyan Brenn @ Flickr
- 17. Bruce Schneier Internationally renowned security Technologist @Bruce_Schneier Catastrophic is the right word [for Heartbleed]. On the scale of 1 to 10, this is an 11.
- 19. Source: Ohloh.net Growing Codebase Static and small contributor base 1 person maintaining 100 KLoC = Underinvestment Extremely large user base Critical infrastructure component Thus impact of Heartbleed is huge
- 23. Features How many users you have How many vendors back you How you are seen in the press …
- 24. can help you succeed
- 25. Neutrality / Perception Support Infrastructure Expertise / Mentoring Vendor Network … BUT: You still need to do all the right things
- 27. Create a balanced Flywheel OSS Foundations can help Master different skills Vinovyn @ Flickr
- 28. Follow Industry News Follow Project News Adopt Software Engage with Users Trial Software Engage with Industry Evangelize Contribute Customize Lead Activities Metrics Problem
- 29. Community is expanding fast Companies can’t find staff Potential of slowing growth Potential of loosing new vendors Poaching Friction Problem Tim J Keegan @ Flickr
- 30. Training: Expensive to create Does not normally scale bit.do/grow-devs You don’t need training… Good and active dev wiki In code API docs Recorded developer talks Extensive commit messages Design discussions on the list (linked to in commit message) Willingness to help newcomers (mentors) ...
- 31. Orgs need to apply (we did not always get in) Students only, summer only Orgs and companies can sponsor slots Interns, summer and winter Good mentors = word of mouth Committed mentors (who can spend a few hours a week) Suitable projects Not so much about the code = it’s an investment in people Metrics Approx. 40% still engaged after 3 years Repeat mentors, more people willing to mentor
- 32. 30% Community Growth p.a. Contributors competing for review time from stretched maintainer / reviewer base Average review time up from 28 to 32 days in 6 months Problem
- 33. Short term fixes (documentation/guidance : set expectations) (better co-ordination for amongst reviewers) Grow reviewer base by identifying capable candidates in the community (support + encourage + reward : bit.do/let-them-be-your-heroes) Get backing from vendors to ensure candidates stay engaged in community (if vendor employee) Mentor candidates to get them effective more quickly than normal (copy the GSoC / OPW pattern) Still discussing how to do this (at a BoF yesterday and the dev meeting today) No guarantee this works!!!
- 36. Media Industry Media Coverage Social Media Impact
- 37. Media Industry Users User & Web Metrics Features / Releases
- 39. Are you helping your employer by contributing to the project? Employer Contributors Media Industry Users
- 40. Are you spending your funds wisely? bit.do/community-plan Employer Board Contributors Media Industry Users
- 42. Open Source Flywheel revisited The boundary between Business and Communities
- 45. Create a balanced Flywheel OSS Foundations can help Master many different skills Vinovyn @ Flickr Get Companies to help you
- 47. Undefined Responsibilities cause problems Moyan Brenn @ Flickr
- 48. Xen Project Advisory Board trying to push a preferred test harness over community solution Paralysis: no new test code written Delay of roll-out of independently hosted Test Farm Risk of Test Farm not being adopted • Working group jointly led by community and Advisory Board • Group resolved the issue
- 49. Vendor trying to use private channels to Citrix Xen Project maintainers to get an edge Committers needed the vendor help to progress their goals Vendor trying to get more and more Potential of lack of trust in our Xen Project maintainers • A rather difficult conversation • Vendor starting to follow community practices and additionally donating (non-developer) resources to the project
- 51. Tedious and Business Unfriendly Rules Moyan Brenn @ Flickr
- 52. Vendors wants to promote project at events (swag, booth, collateral, …) Tedious approval process for every single instance • PMC approval • VP of Trademark approval (bottleneck) Frustrated vendors Frustrated community • Simplify process for common situations • Proposal at bit.do/PMC-TM-management
- 54. CommunityCompanies • PR / AR / Marketing / Messaging • Membership Rules / Trademarks / Legal • Provide funds to solve “Common Good” problems • Referee of last resort • Principles (aka Values) • Roles • Decision Making • Project Lifecycle • Community Initiatives, Best Practices, … Advisory Board WGs Project Governance Test WG PR WG TCT
- 56. Clear Rules and Responsibilities Remove tension Create trust Works best when aligned with Flywheel Business friendly Rules Simple and Easy Enables businesses to help the community Effect: Community sees value in company participation Vinovyn @ Flickr
- 57. Vinovyn @ Flickr
- 58. Maria Ly @ Flickr
- 60. Tchami @ Flickr
- 62. Please rate the talk www.slideshare.net/xen_com_mgr/
Editor's Notes
- #3: Love to travel to weird places and grow weird plants
- #4: 10 years =stories to tell
- #7: Munich, London, LA
- #10: TIMING: 7 MINS Inspired by the Bezos Flywheel which “explains how to attract ever more sales in an online store”
- #22: Mention: Core Infrastructure Initiative
- #23: The reason for these issues is often an imbalanced or broken cycle In the case of the Xen Project, we also had an imbalanced cycle, and I spent the last 4 years at the project fixing this.
- #24: TIMING: 15 MINS 10 years ago, putting the code out there was usually enough to be successful! Today we have a lot of new challenges
- #25: This is not true any more, because we hit resource limits
- #27: This story is about change : so let’s start with how OSS changed
- #29: Example: # Apache main strength is the “Apache Way” of building communities # One of the LFs main strength is the mix of commercial focus and marketing capabilities
- #30: Link back to Jim Zemlin’s keynote about the rise of OSS foundations
- #31: TIMING: 20 MINS #1 Inspired by Sales Funnels : conversion of leads from media interest to users to developers/companies Effectiveness determined by shape of funnel #2 The shape can be manipulated by activities (e.g. Test Days) and external events (e.g. what the competition does) #3 Don’t have time to go through this in detail, but there is a blog post and presentation with a case study explaining it
- #32: TIMING: 22 MINS
- #33: Maybe even link back to presentations given at events
- #34: Word of mouth => 60% of our joint GSoC and OPW participants being women
- #36: Mentoring does imply that existing maintainers and reviewers spend more time
- #37: TIMING: 30 MINUTES
- #45: TIMING: 35 MINUTES
- #46: Marketing vs. Community & Developer Driven
- #48: Do you remember that lesson? CLICK … in the areas they do well
- #49: Unfortunately that is easier said than done --- CLICK: because in practice there is often tension when one tries to do this CLICK: they have different reasons for participating --- BUT: the common interest for both companies and people mostly participate for their own selfish interests In other words: it’s unfair to say the interests of companies vs. those of people are better or worse than the others --- And of course that tension is manageable And some (!) OSS foundations are very good in helping manage that tension
- #50: TIMING: 38 MINUTES Responsibility in the sense of who should and is allowed to do what
- #51: The root cause was that we had no proven mechanism for companies and the community to work together
- #52: NOTE: I also used the conversation to ask for stuff from the vendor (such as donating of HW, …) – and now I am usually setting expectations upfront
- #53: Common thread to these stories … No bad intentions in any of them Companies and people will always try and push boundaries (in particular when they are fuzzy) to follow their self-interest
- #54: TIMING: 42 MINUTES
- #56: TIMING: 40 MINS
- #57: Cross-over of people, e.g. committers and maintainers on board and WG groups
- #58: Apache, Commercial Projects, …
- #59: TIMING: 45 MINUTES
- #60: TIMING: 34 MINUTES
- #63: In other words : why not let companies contribute expertise which they have rather than doing it all yourself
- #65: TIMING: 36 MINUTES