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emerging-models-for-open-source-contributions.md

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EMERGING MODELS FOR OPEN SOURCE CONTRIBUTIONS

Nadia Eghbal, @nayafia

  • Doing research around open source activity
  • Evolution of open source contributions
  • Different models, emerged over time
  • Brief history of different models for managing open source contributions
  • What the future holds
  • Different models for different market needs
    • Markets: users, contributors
  • History
    • BDFL prevalent (Benevolent Dictator for Life, Linux, Python)
      • Anyone can have their say, but 1 person (BD) has final say
      • Made sense when the market was smaller
      • Open source was a counter-culture, alternative
      • Harder to code, fewer contributors
      • BDFL benefits:
        • Centralized leadership, governance
        • Centralized roadmap, direction
      • Drawbacks:
        • Less democratic
        • Best you can hope for is influence
        • BDFL made companies nervous, both contributing and using
          • Arbitrary decisions made by someone outside of our control
    • Meritocracy (Apache Software Foundation, 1999)
      • Multiple actors weighing in
      • Anyone with merit can make contributions, can have a binding vote
      • 👍 Great for company buy-in, path for participation
      • Apache helped with legal protections, creating a neutral safe space
      • Partially why open source has been successful
      • Still some friction:
        • *with merit, what does this mean? how is it achieved?
        • From ASF: people have to earn the right
          • Commitment, care, work well with others (not going to rock the boat)
        • You need to prove yourself, by spending time on the project
      • Makes sense in theory, but…
        • Favors people who can pay to play (people with time)
        • E.g. companies who can devote full time contributors have more weight, say in process
    • Liberal contribution (Node.js, 2010s)
      • More users, tech, talent than ever before
      • Git, GitHub made this easier for anyone to jump in
      • Common interface, pattern, for contributing
      • 49% of ppl on top GitHub projects only contributed once 😮
      • More NOISE, under meritocracy this was bad 👎
      • But, opportunity! Engagement! Harness! Redirect!
        • CLA requirement? Can we drop it?
        • Node adopted a liberal contribution policy (Getting people to contribute is hard, Git is good at removing things — Mikel Rogers, Node.js)
      • Results:
        • Waaaaaay more contributions 📈
        • Free marketing, WOM (word of mouth) ambassadors
          • Nodeschool
        • New perspectives, skills, backgrounds (inclusion)
          • People need to be enabled to do good work — Mikel Rogers
      • Also, Rust adopting this contribution model
        • Originally used BDFL -> core team -> federated structure
        • 1200+ contributors, contributing regularly
        • diverse range of perspectives in both design and decision-making — Alex Crichton, Rust
        • Care about end-user perspective
    • Liberal contribution models:
      • Floodgates, not bottlenecks
        • Ultimately less work for maintainer, although counterintuitive
      • Consensus seeking (focus on major concerns), rather than consensus
        • Once there are no more major issues, we’re 🆒?
        • Emphasize discussion
      • Meet contributors where they are
        • Value of good docs, contribution guides, tagging beginner bugs
      • Default to yes
        • Here’s what I need from you in order to be able to accept
  • Do BDFLs still matter?
    • Yes, early in life of project. Central person important
    • BDFL can help incubate, set direction
    • Like starting a company
    • Liberal contributions can help with managing growth
    • Project trajectory chart 📈
    • Move towards liberal contributions as project matures, grows
  • Case study:
    • Django, Jacon Kaplan-Moss (…I realize our community doesn’t need [BDFLs])
  • Modern projects using BDFL?
    • Clojure: 1 person making vast majority of contributions
    • Works because Clojure is sustainably supported (by Cognitect), and everyone is happy with the situation 😄
  • BDFL as a long-term strategy, requires luck (find a company to hire you to work on project forever)
  • Liberal contribution reduces burden on individual maintainer
    • A framework for sustainability
  • Narrow scope? BDFL could work…
  • Dependent on community and culture

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Wed Jun 29 10:01:56 PDT 2016