Anatomy of Open Source Software

Greg Sheremeta

● Intended Audience○ non-technical, entry level technical non-programmers, students

What is Open Source?

“refers to something that can be modified because its design is publicly accessible.”

http://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source

chocolate cookie recipe -- add walnuts (“fork” the recipe)

Open Source Software Development is a process

when referring to open source software dev in particular, I like to define it as a process model.

The scientific method is a process model that most people are familiar with

open source software development … is a process with tasks, inputs, tools, decisions, and outputs.

What is it not?

● open source != free software○ although there is huge overlap. Most open source software is free

● it is also not shareware, or try before you buy software

[next slide -- winrar image]

7-zip -- open source alternative to winzip and winrar

What is it not?x

Scope

● Software● Hardware● Media● Government● Cola!

https://opensource.com/about

hardware - arduino board -- i’ll show that in a minutemedia -- icons, fonts, graphicsgovernment - raleighcola -recipe public. some attempt to mimic coca cola

Do people prefer using open source?

● Do people prefer using open source?○ If so, why?

■ Linux users in the room?○ If not, why not?

■ Macbook users. Your OS isn’t open source. Have you purposely chosen a non-OSS OS? if so, why?

○ Note that I’m using Fedora (open source OS), but this very presentation is done in Google Slides (not open source). I could have used LibreOffice, but I prefer the cloud-based nature and ease of use of Google Slides.

Red Hat’s founder used this analogy: "Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut?" Most of us would answer no. And while most of us are not mechanics, it’s nice to know we can get in there and poke around if we absolutely needed to. Or, that we can have someone other than the manufacturer take a look if we choose.

This is a Viper V10 from the 2015 dodge viper. my favorite all time car. I wouldn’t dream of touching this engine, right? But I just want to know that I could if I wanted to.

Image from http://www.topspeed.com/cars/dodge/2015-dodge-viper-srt-ar164193.html Copyright Topspeed“Permission to use materials from the Service (the "Materials") is granted provided that: (a) The copyright notice appears in all copies; (b) Use of such Materials is for informational and non-commercial or personal use only and will not be copied or posted on any network computer or broadcast in any media; and (c) No modifications of the Materials are made.”

Open source is now ubiquitous.Almost all programmers use some open source code in their day jobs. (Doug mentioned at 10 am session -- only 50% of their managers know it!)Linux has replaced Unix in the datacenter85% of phones shipped today are based on open source (Android) (http://www.pcworld.com/article/2460020/android-grabs-record-85-percent-smartphone-share.html)

Formal definition

“[O]pen source [software] refers to a computer program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

I said earlier that I define “open source software development” as broadly as possible by calling is a process model.

The only thing developers like to create more than code are processes for writing code. Sometimes they're called “software development lifecycles.”

The most popular ones at the moment are called Kanban and Scrum -- have people heard of those?

For those that haven’t, these are methods of developing software that borrow ideas from Lean Manufacturing. Kanban is very simple. You track your work in some columns -- To Do, Doing, and Done. You simply limit the amount of work in Doing column. Very simple.. Scrum is very popular right now and is famous for having Stand Up meetings, where everyone meets every morning, and everyone stands up to hopefully help the meeting move along faster, because no one wants to stand up.

{next slide}

{pause}

Scrum and Kanban are somewhat complementary to open source development, and I’d argue they’re the two most widely used complementary lifecycles when doing open source development. I’d also argue that open source used Kanban long before the term became as popular and well-known as it is today.

In just a minute we’ll start digging into what the actual components of open source software development are.

But first, I wanted to show two more definitions, because I think these help a lot.

“[T]ypically a collaborative effort where programmers improve upon the source code and share the changes within the community so that other members can help improve it further.”

also from the wikipedia page

upward spiral

{ next slide }

“Open source software is software whose source code is available for modification or enhancement by anyone. … Programmers who have access to a computer program's source code can improve that program by adding features to it or fixing parts that don't always work correctly.”

http://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source

Contributions

● Vast majority of people are users and don’t contribute.○ and that’s absolutely fine!○ but I’d love for YOU to contribute, and I’m going to show you how easy

it is to do● Open source runs on contributions from a wide variety of people. Some are

volunteers, and others are paid by companies to work on open source (or what I like to call, living the dream)

● Since we need contributions, we want to be as open and welcoming as possible!

Inputs

● Programmers (Code)● Graphic designers (layouts, images, etc.)● Documentation authors (Documentation)● more rarely -- analysts, user experience

designers, project managers, people managers, etc.

so, let’s talk about the components of the open source process. Inputs.

○ more rarely -- analysts, user experience designers, project managers, people managers, etc.

■ small projects never have these things. Large projects often don’t, but they often do when project is sponsored or steered by a company

Patches

programmers submit code to an open source project in the form of a “patch”. This is an easy way to sendcode updates to others via email.

There are other tools that we can use to send patches. Email is the lowest common denominator, but people also use tools such as github and gerrit.

Roles

● Contributors● Maintainers● Committers● Owners / Project leads

(Usually meritocracy, held by programmers)

some more components -- here we have Roles

i’ll go into more depth on those in a minute

Contributors

● Simple. People who contribute.● Filing a bug! Even pointing out a typo.● Submitting a contribution

○ Caution: Sometimes your contribution is not included!

● Helping others in a forum or an IRC channel

Maintainers and Committers

● Maintainers accept code from people

● Committers have permissions to write new code into the version control repository

● On very large projects, these can be different roles. Usually they are not.

Owner / Project Leader

Public leader, figurehead. Often the founder of a project. Voted in by committers or maintainers.

Meritocracy means …

“The more you contribute the more responsibility you will earn. Leadership roles ... are also merit-based and earned by peer acclaim.“

http://www.xenproject.org/governance.html

the more you contribute -- and assuming those contributions are good -- the more responsibility you will earn.

so committers and maintainers must earn those responsibilities.usually you earn then by writing lots of good patches that get accepted.

Tasks

● Releasing, versions● Forks● Licensing● Handling requests (bugs, enhancements,

etc.)

some tasks that are common to open source

Releases -- actually releasing the software. Open source projects are usually released very early in their lives.The developers decide which features they want to bundle together in a release, they give it a version number, andsend it out into the world.

Forks -- often developers will want to make their own special copies of a project, and that’s called a fork. Thereare many reason people want to create whole copies of a project and branch out on their own. If you’re familiar withLinux, there are numerous forks of Linux called “distros”. Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, and Mint are some of the morepopular ones today.

licensing i’ll talk more about in a minute

(there was a dedicated talk next about licencing this morning, given by a real lawyer. IANAL so i’m not qualified to talk about licensing in any depth. but the talk this morning was awesome -- i hope you got a chance to see it.)

Once your code is out there and people are using it, they’re going to find issues and they’re going to have requests for additional features.

And so you need tools to help with that. {next slide}

Licensing

● Copyleft vs. permissive

● Copyleft -- all derivative works must retain the license, and remain open source○ GNU GPL

● Permissive -- open source, no or limited restrictions○ Apache Public License

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-source_software_licenses

(disclaimer: this is my [probably over-simplified] take)

● Huge topic -- can (and will) fill its own presentation○ Lots of variables, but I see them as two main types -- copyleft and

permissive○ Copyleft -- all derivative works (explain that term) must retain the

license, and remain open source■ GNU GPL

○ Permissive -- open source, no or limited restrictions■ Apache Public License

● http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-source_software_licenses

Tools that support

● Programming editors● Version control software● Code review software● Issue / request tracker● Communication

● Programming editors○ Notepad! vi, nano, emacs, Notepad++, and smarter ones that offer

coding suggestions

Tools that support

● Programming editors● Version control software● Code review software● Issue / request tracker● Communication

○ Version control software ( don’t explain yet ) {next slide - git blame}

git blame - version control

Tools that support

● Programming editors● Version control software● Code review software● Issue / request tracker● Communication

code review software -- these are relatively new tools that are really great. They allow developers to visually see the changes,and then they can make comments of suggestions right on a line by line basis { next slide}

gerrit, showing line by line comments

Tools that support

● Programming editors● Version control software● Code review software● Issue / request tracker● Communication

Issue / request tracker

Red Hat’s Bugzilla

Tools that support

● Programming editors● Version control software● Code review software● Issue / request tracker● Communication

Issue / request tracker

Build automation

Communication (email, IRC, web forums, Slack)

(demos)

https://github.com/pithos/pithos/issues/67

Thanks!

greg@gregsheremeta.com