Open source behind the firewall

! Open source behind the firewall What government can learn
from startups and the open source community @benbalter government.github.com [email protected]

! 1. How government works 2. How open source projects
work 3. How gov. can work like open source

! How you work is as important as what you
work on

! But first, I’d like to talk about trash cans

! But first, I’d like to talk about rubbish bins

! For any given problem,   there are always two
solutions

! The easy way and   the government way

! When outputs can’t be measured, government institutes process

! A lot of process.

! " on the DC Metro

! " on the London Underground

! Transparency solves for process

! How government typically works

! Few (if any) in-house developers

! Same procurement process for   aircraft carriers and websites

! Siloed IP, Siloed efforts

! Closed source, but still somehow, too many cooks in
the kitchen

! Program managers as   human issue trackers

! Non-purpose built tools (Excel + Outlook)

Ye Olde workflow

! Open Source ≠ Published Source

! How Open Source projects work

! If you remember one thing about open source’s secret
sauce…

! Prefer systems that naturally capture and expose process

! Who made what change when (without the human blocker)

! Open source is the story of   Wikipedia v.
Encyclopedia Britannica

! Rarely in the same place   at the same
time

! Rarely working on the same thing  at the same
time

! Better results than   heavyweight alternatives

! The constraints of open source

! ! Electronic High fidelity mediums expose process

! # Transparent Communicate decisions in realtime, and forever

! $ Asynchronous Focus workflow on code, not meetings

! % Informal Adopt cultures, not polices

! What makes a healthy   open source project?

‣Code in the open ‣Shared, public issue tracker ‣Extensive test
suite run on each proposed change & Code

‣Proposed improvements discussed in the open ‣Few synchronous meetings  
(open and memorialized when necessary) ‣All stakeholders have opportunity to contribute ' Discussions

! What government can   learn from open source (even
if the code’s never public)

! Friction (n)  Time between “I want to contribute” and
“I have”

! 1. Minimize friction

! in Gov Speak

! Maximize the substance-process ratio

! ( Scripts to rule them all $ script/test Bootstrapping
$ boxen giants $ cd ~/github/giants $ script/bootstrap Running $ script/server Testing githubengineering.com/scripts-to-rule-them-all

! 2. Prefer cultural constraints to administrative or technical constraints

! Non-blocking is better than blocking

! 3. Optimize for   developer happiness

! You can have open source without executive oversight

! You can have open source without policy guidance

! You can’t have open source without developers

! You can’t have open source without code

! What does that look like practically?

! ) Email

! At GitHub we use GitHub to build GitHub

GitHub uses GitHub for Code Legal HR Blog posts Documentation
Policies Sales Ops

zachholman.com/posts/github-communication

! “Meetings pull you from actual work in order to
talk about doing work”

‣ We use 185 rooms at the moment. ‣ We
generated 29,168 lines of text on February 4. ‣ Of that, Hubot accounted for 13,462 lines. ‣ 468 images were pasted in. ‣ We deployed various apps and services 544 times.

! Why chat?

! Chat is inherently asynchronous

! Tapping someone on the shoulder is inherently being a
jerk

! Scheduling a meeting is inherently evil

! Chat has transcripts

! Chat exposes process

* Meet Hubot

! + Continuous Integration (CI)

+ Continuous Integration (CI)

, Build Status

‣ ~1,500 test suits ‣ ~19,00 tests ‣ ~80,000 assertions
‣ x 2 environments (.com, Enterprise) ‣ Tests > 20 seconds are considered a failure ‣ ~ 90 seconds to complete - On each push…

! /Deploy

! Nothing gets deployed unless tests are green

⚡ Doing it live

Meanwhile, back at the pull request…

! githubengineering.com/deploying-branches-to-github-com

0 ChatOps

" Shared Command Line •View cameras in our datacenter •
Search error logs • Manage and trigger alerts • Perform server maintenance • View load balancer status • Spin up cloud instances • Provision servers • Adjust ﬁrewall ports • Activate DDoS Mitigation • Restart processes • Conﬁgure DNS • Deploy to production

! Who’s doing this?

! 20,000+ government users

! 1,000+ government organizations

! 100+ UK government orgs

! What about the private sector?

Startups twitter.github.io yelp.github.io

netﬂix.github.io adobe.github.io

Tech Giants sap.github.io ibm.github.io microsoft.github.io

! To summarize…

! 1. Transparency can save you   from the tyranny
of process

! 2. Prefer systems that inherently  capture and expose process

! 3. Minimize friction

! Open source behind the firewall What government can learn
from startups and the open source community @benbalter government.github.com [email protected]

! Appendix

A typical deployment ﬂow Development Staging Production

GitHub's 1 ﬂow Development Staging Production Development Development Staging Staging

2 Branch Labs

3 Queuing

‣ Trash can — https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcmetroblogger/ 191721958/ ‣ Rubbish Bin -
http://anonw.com/2013/02/08/more-bins-are- appearing-on-the-underground/

Open source behind the firewall

Open source behind the firewall

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