What Every Successful

Open Source Project Needs

@spf13Chief Operator @ Docker Former Chief Developer Advocate @ MongoDB,

Author of Hugo, spf13-vim, Cobra, Afero, Viper & more

Mainframe Era : 60s & 70s

• Computer companies sold hardware

• Software was free

• Software was colloborative

• IBM dominates

The Software Era: 80s - 90s

• Software as a business emerged

• Software companies sold “bits”

• Software was private and proprietary

• Microsoft dominates

The Internet Era: 00s

• Internet changes everything

• Open source movement gains traction (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP)

• Tech selling ads, bits, hardware & services

• Google Dominates

The Free Source Era: 10s

• Technology companies sell Hardware & Services

• Software is becoming free ($$) (Windows 10, OS X, Android, IOS)

• Game companies still sell bits

• Virtually all software companies are now participating in open source

Open Source Companies

• Redhat $13B

• Cloudera $3B

• MongoDB $1.6B

• Docker $.5B

• Hortonworks $1B

• Wordpress $1B

Open Source Companies• Google (Android,

Chrome, Docker, Linux)

• Apple (Webkit, LLVM)

• Facebook (Cassandra, HipHop, Hive, PHP)

• IBM (Linux, Eclipse, Docker)

• Yahoo (Hadoop, Linux, YUI)

• Oracle (Linux, MySQL, Java)

• Microsoft (Linux, .net, Docker)

• Intel (Linux)

Open Source is taking over

the world

Successful Open

Source Projects

Need

Purpose

Values

Communication

Users

Contributors

Leadership

Today we are

focusing on

Purpose

Communication

Users

Contributors

Successful Open Source Projects Need

Purpose

Why Start a Project ?

To scratch an itch

Hugo Static Site Generator in Go

(200+ already existed, but none in Go)

Missing tool or library

Cobra & Viper CLI commander & Configuration management

You wrote something others find

useful

spf13-vim My Personal Vim Configuration…

now 100+ contributors

You’ve thought of a

better way to do something

MongoDB & DockerChanging the way software is built and run

Successful Open Source Projects Need

Communication

What is Communication

• What you say

• What you write

• What you do

• What you build

Great Communication

= Great writing

Great Writing• Requires time

• Requires editing

• Requires effort

• Requires practice

Users will have questions

• Need to establish a place for them to ask questions

• Public is ideal:

• Others can respond

• Others benefit from the response

Forums & mailing lists

• Google groups ok, but hard to search

• Stack Overflow will happen, but not focused

• Forums work best, Discourse is pretty good

• IRC also works well, but realtime and without integrated search.

README• Your single most important file

• First thing everyone sees

• Most projects don’t spend enough time on a readme

• Where you convey your purpose & values

A Good README

Vision, concrete examples, installation instructions, etc

Challenging Communication

One day at MongoDB a

couple years ago we received a

nasty bug report...

Best way to read, leave

only the facts

Only respond to the facts

Now it’s a definitive example

on how to respond to trolls

Successful Open Source Projects Need

Users

You need users• No matter how good a project is, it

can’t succeed without users

• Unless you tell the world about your project, people will not come

• Unnatural behavior for most engineers

To: Newsgroups: comp.os.inix Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?Summary: small poll for my new operating system Message-ID: <mailto: 1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.Fi

Hello everybody out there using minix — I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386 (486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I’ve currently ported bash (1.08) and gcc (1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I’ll get something practical within a few months, and I’d like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them :-).

Linus (mailto: torvalds@klaava.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes — it’s free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have :-(.

Focus on the User

• Success depends on a good user experience

• Contributions come from happy users

User Experience

• Starts with installation

• What are the first 10 minutes like?

• What could turn a user away?

Good User Experience

Requires Listening

Successful Open Source Projects Need

Contributors

Contributors are the

lifeblood of Open Source

Why Contribute ?

Why Contribute• It feels good to give back

• Good way to make friends

• Great way to make connections

• Gain exposure / personal branding

Best Software Education

Why Contribute• Establish actual real life experience

• Better than a resume

• Demonstrates that you can do more than code

I’m not a developer

• Projects need much more than code

• Like saying “I’m not an actor, so I can’t work at a movie studio”

Join the mailing list/

forums

Answer a question on

the mailing list

Review the documentation

Write some documentation

Write a tutorial

Screencast a feature

File a Bug Report

Review tickets

Try to reproduce

bugs and add information

Contribute logos, icons & designs

How to Contribute

Instead of “This is Wrong”...

“How can I help?”

Prepare• Learn the tools of the trade

• Git & Github

• Read the Documentation

• Familiarize yourself with IRC, forums, & the correct channels

Take Iniative• Don’t be afraid to try

• Open source loves self starters

• Open source authors are usually very approachable and open to ideas

• Communicate and collaborate as much as possible

Ask• What can I help with?

• I would like to help with X, but would benefit from some guidance, can someone guide me?

• If I contributed Y, would that help?

No matter how slow you go, you

will always lap those on the

sidelines

How to Get Contributors

Most projects have very few contributors

• You must give if you want to get

• Contributors are an investment in the future of the project

• Contributors pay back many times what you put in

Make it Easy to Contribute

• Use an “open” open source license (Apache 2.0, MIT, BSD)

• Provide contribution guidelines

• Provide contribution instructions & tutorials

Treat Contributors Well

• Happier developers will contribute more

• The more welcome people feel the more they will help your project

Be Responsive• Respond to Pull Requests in a

timely manner

• Provide and contribute to a channel where people can ask questions

• Respond to issues quickly

Invite Contributors

• Overcommunicate that contributions are welcome

• Ask people to contribute

• Ask. Ask. Ask. Invite. Invite. Invite.

It’s Dangerous to Go Alone

Empower Contributors• When someone shows initative and

history of good contributions make them a committer

• Resist tempation to control

• If you aren’t able to be responsive, appoint more committers

Teach • Don’t ever say no.

• Teach contributors how it can become a yes

• Newly empowered contributors contagiously help others

Docker’s Birthday Open-source-a-thon18 Cities + Online. Mentorship by Go & Docker. Save Whales.

http://docker.party

We live in an open source

world

Without contributions open source

would not exist

You are the most

important contributor

Thank You !Questions ?

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@spf13