Starting an Open Source Program Office (OSPO)
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The document outlines the growing trend of open source programs in companies, highlighting their increasing importance for innovation, collaboration, and risk management. It discusses the establishment and evolution of open source program offices (OSPOs), particularly at Capital One, and emphasizes the need for clear strategies, processes, and a supportive culture. Additionally, it notes the collaborative efforts among organizations through the Todo Group to share best practices and improve the management of open source projects.
Starting an Open Source Program Office (OSPO)
- 1. Starting an Open Source Program in your Company Chris Aniszczyk (LF) Jag Gadiyaram (Capital One)
- 2. Agenda › Introductions › Rise of Open Source Programs › OSPO Case Study: Capital One › TODO Group › Starting an Open Source Program › Q&A
- 3. Trend: We all see Open Source is Accelerating 23M+ Open Source Developers 64M+Repositories on GitHub 41B+ Lines of Code 1,100 New Projects a Day 10,000+ New Versions per Day Sources: Sourceclear, Sonatype, Github
- 4. Trend: Open Source is Eating the World • “78% of companies are using open source… 63% are participating… ” (https://www.blackducksoftware.com/future-of-open-source) http://www4.mercedes-benz.com/manual-cars/ba/foss/content/en/assets/FOSS_licences.pdfiOS: General->About->Legal->Legal Notices https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you
- 5. Trend: Data Growth is Accelerating • More services/things are being connected to to the internet and generating data that will help companies optimize their business: http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends • Cost to store data is getting much cheaper (also for fun follow @InternetOfShit)
- 6. Trend: Web Scale Companies Open Up and Share › Software is a means to an end for internet/web scale companies › Google, Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc… › Google: Kubernetes, Tensorflow › Facebook: OpenCompute, HHVM, OpenCellular › Twitter: Mesos/Aurora/Parquet/Heron › LinkedIn: Kafka › Netflix: NetflixOSS: https://netflix.github.io/
- 7. Trend: Open Source Isn’t Slowing Down Any Time Soon!
- 8. Rise of Open Source Programs
- 9. Trend: Web Scale Companies + Open Source Programs The internet scale companies pioneered the creation of open source programs: › Google: https://developers.google.com/open-source/ › “…tasked with maintaining a healthy relationship with the open source software development community" › Facebook: https://code.facebook.com/opensource › “…we’re keen users and publishers of open software. We'll keep you up-to-date with our new projects…” › Twitter: http://todogroup.org/blog/why-we-run-an-open-source-program-twitter/ › Netflix: https://netflix.github.io
- 10. Trend: Traditional Companies + Open Source Programs Traditional companies have begun creating open source programs too! › Autodesk › https://github.com/todogroup/guides/blob/master/casestudies/autodesk.md › Comcast › https://github.com/todogroup/guides/blob/master/casestudies/comcast.md › Intel: https://01.org (“…international team dedicated to working within open communities.”) › Salesforce › https://github.com/todogroup/guides/blob/master/casestudies/salesforce.md › Samsung: http://commit101.org › “The Open Source Group was formed in 2013 to do the following: Help guide the company in effective consumption, collaboration, and development of open source software. Provide advocacy on behalf of Samsung in external open source communities….
- 11. Trend: Startups* + Open Source Programs Forward looking startups also created open source programs in their earlier days › Box: http://opensource.box.com › http://todogroup.org/blog/creating-an-open-source-office-box/ › “we give back to the open source community whenever possible, by contributing code to outside projects and sharing projects that we've developed internally” › Dropbox: https://opensource.dropbox.com › “Dropbox loves open source! We participate in the open source community by using open source software internally and open sourcing our own projects” › Uber: https://uber.github.io › “Uber loves open source and contributing to the open source community” › GitHub: http://todogroup.org/blog/why-we-run-an-open-source-program-github
- 12. Trend: Chief “Open Source” Officer Companies are hiring executive open source leads… ‣ “As VMware broadens its ecosystem from traditional engagements in the data center space to areas such as software-defined networking and Cloud Native and mobile app technologies, we have been releasing more and more of our new offerings as open source software," said Ray O'Farrell, executive vice president and Chief Technology Officer, VMware. "Dirk brings a new level of leadership, best practices and creativity to help us drive these open source contributions and projects." ‣ http://thenewstack.io/makers-dirk-hohndel-vmware-role-open-source-com mercial-software/
- 13. Trend: Open Source Program… even Microsoft! https://microsoft.com/opensource ‣ “Microsoft’s commitment to openness and collaboration is ingrained… These collaborations have enabled new scenarios for customers and partners to take open source software and integrate it with a Microsoft platform.” ‣ http://todogroup.org/blog/why-we-run-an-open-source-program-microsoft Hell they even bought GitHub!
- 14. TODO Group Survey (github.com/todogroup/survey)
- 15. TODO Group Survey: Benefits of OSPOs
- 16. TODO Group Survey: Benefits of OSPOs
- 17. Trend: Open Source Programs… even Governments!? https://gds.blog.gov.uk/about ‣ “We now want to build on that work with a more concerted approach to open source (and “inner source”), building collaboration and reuse internally and making higher impact contributions to the wider open source community.” ‣ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/20/gds_recruiting_op en_source_chief/ ‣ https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/169669924
- 18. OSPO @ Capital One
- 19. 19 CONFIDENTIAL Understanding Capital One’s context is important to understanding our open source journey We are a diversified bank We operate in a highly regulated environment We have a deep culture of risk management We operate at the forefront of technology
- 20. 20 CONFIDENTIAL Open source software is a catalyst for building great technology products Accelerates delivery Increases innovation Improves quality
- 21. 21 CONFIDENTIAL We recognized the importance of open source as a key part of our tech destination • Widely adopt Agile • Build a world-class engineering team • Use APIs everywhere • Elevate human-centered design • Leverage big data • Build on Open Source Key declarations from 2012 – 2014:
- 22. 22 CONFIDENTIAL Our open source journey started with an enterprise declaration We build our most important innovations using open source software Open source first means: Our developers routinely contribute back to projects that we use We selectively launch our own projects and build vibrant communities around them
- 23. 23 CONFIDENTIAL Open source has since become an integral part of who we are and how we work Over 3,000 unique open source projects in use at Capital One Our engineers have committed over 1,500 contributions to more than 100 different projects Our teams have released more than 25 of our own projects as open source
- 24. 24 CONFIDENTIAL In 2015, we launched the OS Program Office to manage our adoption Managing the security and legal risk of open source used by Capital One Protecting Capital One’s assets while allowing projects to contributions Governing the process of releasing projects Three main control objectives were established:
- 25. 25 CONFIDENTIAL Establishing the program & controls required support from several internal teams Legal Cybersecurity Risk and Compliance
- 26. 26 CONFIDENTIAL There are several operating models for the program office Centralized MatrixedDecentralized Disaggregated
- 27. 27 CONFIDENTIAL Our OSP is a centralized technology function chartered under a corporate policy Develop standards and procedures Open Source Program mandates: Report and escalate non-compliance Require training for developers, data scientists, and others engaged with the community Means that we’re subject to audit and regulator scrutiny
- 28. 28 CONFIDENTIAL Delivery Transformation Delivery Transformation CyberCyberCyber LegalRiskRisk Technology Strategy Enterprise Architecture Enterprise Architecture We experimented with several potential homes for the Open Source Office We initially considered several different homes for Open Source When we started allowing developers to use open source, responsibility for managing the program was inside the EA group As open source use became prevalent, we considered moving the team inside our risk management group We don’t want open source to focus exclusively on risk, so we decided to position the team inside our technology strategy function And we’ve maintained key partnerships with our Cyber and Legal functions
- 29. 29 CONFIDENTIAL Our program has been steadily maturing over the last few years 2014 2015 2016 2017 • “Open source first” declaration • First contributions allowed • Teams had to submit requests to use open source, contribute, and launch projects • Requests were separately reviewed for Legal, Cyber, and Risk concerns • Formal policy and procedures drafted and socialized • Trusted contributor model established • First use of automated scanning with limited success
- 30. 30 CONFIDENTIAL We’ve made great strides in improving access to the open source community Restrictive Started Here ● Restricted to special groups ● Project Whitelist Permissive ● Manual review and approvals ● Project Blacklist Open Today ● Wide access with few limitations ● Automated approvals ● Detective controls and reporting Integrated 2019 Target ● Discoverable through internal tools ● Automated controls & reporting ● Version management built into CICD
- 31. 31 CONFIDENTIAL We closely monitor contributions Tightly governed process (today) Contribution with confidence (coming soon) • Annual training required for contributors • All contributions require approval • Legal, patent, and cyber teams evaluate each contribution • Certify “Trusted Contributors” to projects for accelerated contributions • Everyone is a “Trusted Contributor” • Rules and controls are codified • Intercept commits and risk decision before allowing • Manually review higher risk items
- 32. 32 CONFIDENTIAL OSP support our sponsored projects but founding teams own it OSP Responsibilities Founding Team Responsibilities • Conference and event management • Sponsorship due diligence • Project governance (i.e. health checks) • Support network • Product • Project strategy and funding • Branding Marketing • Community development and support
- 33. 33 CONFIDENTIAL We now treat open source strategically in its own right and as an important facet of key business decisions Processes should be as simple as possible while still controlling risk A healthy open source culture encourages collaboration inside and out Open source is integrated with other key business functions Our vision for open source:
- 34. TODO Group
- 35. Origins of the TODO Group: todogroup.org ‣ Many of us who ran open source program offices shared a private mailing list to commiserate… ‣ It was an avenue to discuss issues in private and even find ways to collaborate on open source projects… ‣ Focused on Silicon Valley companies initially ‣ In 2014 we had an idea of scaling and opening up the the community more… ‣ Announced the TODO Group @Scale 2014 conference! ‣ Moved to the Linux Foundation in 2016!
- 36. What is the TODO Group? ‣ TODO Group is a group of companies who want to – collaborate on best practices on running open source programs – share open source policies and training material – codify quality criteria for well-run open source projects – build and share tools to maintain those quality standards • As we scaled our open source programs, we realized we all built similar tools for the purposes of corporate scale open source… • What is corporate scale open source?
- 37. FYI: Corporate Scale Open Source • Corporate participants in open source have a number of unique concerns ranging from: – scale (i.e., Google and Microsoft have thousands of open source projects) – insights – cultural – legal / governance • Companies doing open source generally want to be good community citizens, to be open and inclusive. They also need to run a business and be aware of responsibilities to their employees, shareholders and the broader community.
- 38. TODO Group + GitHub • GitHub has won as the default host for open source projects but wasn’t designed for corporate large scale open source so there are considerable feature gaps… the TODO Group is helping identify and fill those gaps (i.e., multiple org management, CLAs, community metrics) • We also work with GitHub as a “product council” to help improve their platform that we continued to depend on (e.g., improved org management and required commit status features) • See https://github.com/todogroup/gh-issues
- 39. TODO Group Members (40+ organizations) Andrew Spyker (Netflix) Christine Abernathy (Facebook) Chris Aniszczyk (LF) Gil Yehuda (Oath) Guy Martin (Autodesk) Ian Varley (Salesforce) Ibrahim Haddad (Samsung) Jeff McAffer (Microsoft) Jeff Osier-Mixon (Intel) Joe Beda (Heptio) Nithya Ruff (Comcast) Sarah Novotny (Google) Stormy Peters (Red Hat) Will Norris (Google)
- 40. Starting an Open Source Program
- 41. What is an Open Source Program/Office? • By creating an open source program office, businesses can enable, streamline and organize the use of open source in ways that tie it directly to a company’s long-term business plans. An open source program is designed to be the center of the universe for a company’s open source operations and structure, helping to bring all the needed components together. • See – https://github.com/todogroup/guides/blob/master/creating-an-open-source-program.md
- 42. Open Source Program Responsibilities The responsibilities of a program office are varied. These include: ● Clearly communicating the open source strategy within and outside the company ● Owning and overseeing the execution of the strategy ● Facilitating the effective use of open source in commercial products and services ● Ensuring high-quality and frequent releases of code to open source communities ● Engaging with developer communities and seeing that the company contributes back to other projects effectively ● Fostering an open source culture within an organization ● Maintaining open source license compliance reviews and oversight For every company, the role of the open source program office will likely be custom-configured based on its business, products, and goals. There is no broad template for building an open source program that applies across all industries — or even across all companies in a single industry. That can make its creation a challenge, but you can learn lessons from other companies and bring them together to fit your needs.
- 43. Open Source Program Structures • An open source program structure depends on your company’s primary business and your open source strategy, they can be located in the office of the CTO or other locations. – Legal: For companies that have large intellectual property portfolios, that could mean the open source program office might be a perfect fit in the legal office, where developers can work closely with the legal team on issues that arise. That might be a good fit for a hardware company because it’s always concerned about potentially running into IP-related legal issues. – Engineering: Other companies are more engineering-driven, so they choose to maintain their open source program offices within their engineering departments. That allows them to focus their efforts directly on making their developers more effective and productive in their work. – Developer Relations/Marketing: In other cases, some open source offices are located inside the marketing wing of organizations because they use open source to funnel leads aimed at selling the products they build using open source.
- 44. Open Source Program Activities
- 45. Creating an Open Source Program: #1 Find a Leader • Regardless of how your planning starts, it’s important to find the right leader to help develop and then run the fledgling program office inside a company. The top candidate will have a detailed understanding about how open source works, along with some technical chops from working as a developer, contributor, or committer on existing open source projects. They should have a broad understanding of your company’s business along with the business acumen and management skills to help inform strategy and plan across business units. • In the spirit of open source collaboration, a plethora of online resources exists to help find the best candidates including detailed sample job description postings for open source program managers and other leaders from a variety of companies that established such roles, including Capital One, Box, VMware, Microsoft, and more. • See https://github.com/todogroup/job-descriptions
- 46. Creating an Open Source Program: #2 Define Operations • The budget, staffing, and technology tools and systems needed by a new program office are also key issues to resolve in establishing its operations. Some companies begin with a part-time manager, but learn they will only get so far with that approach. Making the position someone’s full-time job is a solid step to get the program off the ground, along with a small support staff to keep it nimble. • An example of a well-defined open source program office is one that drives needed policy, processes and tools, while also operating with a mantra of eliminating friction where it is found, using tools to automate what can be streamlined, and delegating tasks which need to be accomplished. • A program office must offer structured policies and processes but also remain flexible. When open source users and contributors need help, the office operates more like a consultancy, providing guidance while still allowing employees to make individual or group business decisions relating to their work. Ultimately, the goal is to establish the right balance of duties and responsibilities to meet the needs of your company and its open source users.
- 47. Creating an Open Source Program: #3 Seek Buy-in • Establishing an open source program office isn’t something that should be done in a vacuum. Because it will have a central role in your business, creating it successfully will require open and honest input and feedback from all involved parties inside enterprises. Making sure that everyone from the executives to the developers have a say in its creation will help give the effort broad-based support.
- 48. Creating an Open Source Program: #4 Setting Policies • With many of the other important components now planned or assembled for your company’s open source program office, from its creation to its structure to personnel, the next step is to develop well-defined policies and processes which will enable consistent implementation of your company’s open source strategy. Crucially, they should require minimal overhead. Microsoft looks at its open source program office policies and processes with the goal of making them as unobtrusive as possible for developers and other team members.
- 49. Creating an Open Source Program: #4 Setting Policies • For open source program policy examples: https://github.com/todogroup/policies and https://opensource.google.com/docs/ – How your company accepts external contributions to their open source projects – How to prepare for open source releases – How approvals are received – How developers can use open source code they find on GitHub and other code repositories – Procedures and rules explaining how open source code can be brought into your company – How the incoming code is catalogued so others know it is being used – How a company can grow a community of like-minded external developers around it to keep it thriving – Rules that help determine when code should be released as open source or kept as intellectual property
- 50. Creating an Open Source Program: #5 Develop Tooling* https://github.com/Azure/azure-oss-portal https://github.com/facebook/mention-bot https://github.com/Netflix/osstracker http://ghtorrent.org https://github.com/todogroup/repolinter *https://github.com/todogroup/guides/blob/master/tools-for-managing-open-source-programs.md
- 51. Learn from Others: TODO Open Source Guides › Developed in collaboration with TODO Group › Leverage best practices to run or start an open source project within your organization › Topics include: › Creating an Open Source Program Tools for Managing Open Source Programs › Measuring Your Open Source Program’s Success English: https://linuxfoundation.org/resources/open-source-guides Chinese: https://linuxfoundation.cn/resources/open-source-guides
- 52. Measuring an Open Source Program
- 53. Setting Goals and Metrics • Strategy alignment: Do your goals align with core business strategy, product goals, and other internal business goals? • Level of control: Do your program managers have direct control over results, or does that live with engineering, legal, or some other function? Set goals that are achievable, within your control. • Project variation: Goals can and should vary by project, depending on its purpose, community composition, technology stack, and other variables. For example, Facebook has noticed that its Javascript projects tend to be forked more often. They’ve learned (after many cycles of tracking!) these metrics aren’t necessarily the best indicators of project health for this type of project. • Quantity vs. quality: Not all goals should be tied to a number. Process improvements that boost the quality of your projects are just as important, if not more so. Just because you’re hitting all the numbers, doesn’t necessarily mean your projects are healthy. Conversely, a very small project that’s not growing could also be extraordinarily healthy.
- 54. Goal 1: Ensure the efficient legal compliance of code • How much open source code do you consume? • How well is that consumption tracked? • The policy for using open source code is clear and developers are aware of it. • The processes and tools for bringing in code is clear and devs are following it. • Which products and services are third-party code being used in? • How many compliance issues are you having and how quickly are they resolved? (See the Open Compliance Program for more on this topic)
- 55. Goal 2: Increase Developer Productivity and Efficiency • Number of commits made to external projects identified as strategic to the organization • Number of developers contributing. Also, who are they and which projects do they contribute to? • Number of project maintainers employed by the organization (hired and grown) • Project health for the projects you contribute to • Sentiment analysis: your organization’s reputation in open source communities • Are developers aware of the policy for contributing? (You have one, right?) • Do they follow the process for contributing? (ie must they sign a CLA, etc.) • Do they ask you for help and are you prompt in providing it? • Amount of time between software releases – is it increasing or decreasing? • What are the engineering costs associated with contributing upstream vs. maintaining forked code?
- 56. Goal 3: Create and Grow Open Source Projects • Is there a clear policy for creating new open source projects and are developers aware of it? • Is there a clear and easy process for creating new projects and are developers following it? • How easy is it for outsiders to contribute to your organization’s projects? • Project maintainers are welcoming and helpful • Projects are well-maintained and supported • Code is well documented • How to contribute is well-defined • Other quantitative metrics such as number of new contributors, number of issues created, amount of time it takes to close issues, etc. • Number and diversity of external contributions your projects receive • Popularity of your organization’s projects: GitHub stars, social media followers, etc. • Number of users in deployment and/or production • Number, breadth, and quality of projects your organization launches. For example, mobile or data infrastructure-related projects, etc. • Performance increases in your project and related product • Time between releases
- 57. Goal 4: Recruit and Retain Developers Participating in and creating open source projects as an organization is a great way to attract developers – and onboard them quickly, with fewer resources devoted to training. Developers who use or contribute to your projects will already be familiar with your processes, tools, and technologies when they join the organization. To help make a more direct connection between program efforts and recruiting, Facebook conducts a biannual survey which asks new hires three basic questions: ● Are they aware of the company’s open source program? ● How did that awareness influence their decision to join the company? ● Does their experience with open source apply to the work that they are doing now?
- 58. Goal 5: Promote Open Source Culture It’s important to track how open source culture advances within your organization to measure your program’s effectiveness. Some common ways to measure adoption of open source culture include: ● Awareness of and support for the open source strategy and program among management and individual contributors across all departments, from engineering to marketing and public relations ● Branding and awareness in open source communities – how your organization is perceived ● Participation – you are participating actively in open source communities in a positive way. ● Training and mentorship – you work with developers to improve their open source contributions and projects, find opportunities to contribute, and learn the tools and processes of open source communities, ensure that contributors receive support from their peers and managers ● Adoption of a common toolset ● Code quality is acceptable for open source/external consumption ● Advocating on behalf of the organization – attending and speaking at conferences, writing articles or tutorials ● Sponsoring foundations, groups, or hackathons
- 59. Goal 6: Align open source interests with business needs Community and developer advocacy is a fairly new, but increasingly popular, role in open source programs. This is an important role that ensures your products and services are benefiting from your open source communities,and thus that your open source program stays in line with the organization’s broader business strategy and objectives. Some metrics to track success in your advocacy include: ● How many contributions are coming from outside the organization? ● How many full-time contributors are outside your organization? ● How much externally contributed code is making it back into products? ● How many hires are coming from open source contributions?
- 61. Summary and Final Thoughts... ›Open source will continue to eat new industries (i.e., world) › You will see more open source foundations around industries/problem areas: OpenAI, OpenCelluar ›Every company will become a software company, so learn lessons from others! › They will also act more like internet-scale companies like Google, Facebook, Netflix › They will establish open source programs and hire open source leads ›Contribution brings influence and is the currency in open source… contribute or lose relevance! https://todogroup.org/join/ ›Read: https://github.com/todogroup/guides