Open source behind the firewall

What government can learn from startups and the open source community

Transcript

1. !
   Open source behind the firewall
   What government can learn from startups and the open source community
   @benbalter
   government.github.com
   government@github.com
   

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

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3. !
   How you work
   is as important as
   what you work on
   

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4. !
   But first, I’d like to talk about
   trash cans
   

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5. !
   But first, I’d like to talk about
   rubbish bins
   

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6. !
   For any given problem, 

   there are always two solutions
   

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7. !
   The easy way and 

   the government way
   

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8. !
   When outputs can’t be measured,
   government institutes process
   

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9. !
   A lot of process.
   

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10. !
    " on the DC Metro
    

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14. !
    " on the London Underground
    

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17. !
    Transparency solves for process
    

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18. !
    How government typically works
    

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19. !
    Few (if any) in-house developers
    

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20. !
    Same procurement process for 

    aircraft carriers and websites
    

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21. !
    Siloed IP, Siloed efforts
    

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22. !
    Closed source, but still somehow,
    too many cooks in the kitchen
    

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23. !
    Program managers as 

    human issue trackers
    

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24. !
    Non-purpose built tools
    (Excel + Outlook)
    

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25. Ye Olde workflow
    

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26. !
    Open Source ≠ Published Source
    

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27. !
    How Open Source projects work
    

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28. !
    If you remember one thing about
    open source’s secret sauce…
    

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29. !
    Prefer systems that naturally
    capture and expose process
    

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30. !
    Who made what change when
    (without the human blocker)
    

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31. !
    Open source is the story of 

    Wikipedia v. Encyclopedia Britannica
    

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32. !
    Rarely in the same place 

    at the same time
    

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33. !
    Rarely working on the same thing

    at the same time
    

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34. !
    Better results than 

    heavyweight alternatives
    

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35. !
    The constraints of open source
    

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36. !
    ! Electronic
    High fidelity mediums expose process
    

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37. !
    # Transparent
    Communicate decisions in realtime, and forever
    

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38. !
    $ Asynchronous
    Focus workflow on code, not meetings
    

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39. !
    % Informal
    Adopt cultures, not polices
    

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40. !
    What makes a healthy 

    open source project?
    

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

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42. ‣Proposed improvements discussed in the open
    ‣Few synchronous meetings 

    (open and memorialized when necessary)
    ‣All stakeholders have opportunity to contribute
    ' Discussions
    

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43. !
    What government can 

    learn from open source
    (even if the code’s never public)
    

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44. !
    Friction (n)

    Time between “I want to contribute” and “I have”
    

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45. !
    1. Minimize friction
    

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46. !
    in Gov Speak
    

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47. !
    Maximize the substance-process ratio
    

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48. !
    ( 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
    

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49. !
    2. Prefer cultural constraints to
    administrative or technical constraints
    

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50. !
    Non-blocking is better than blocking
    

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51. !
    3. Optimize for 

    developer happiness
    

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52. !
    You can have open source without
    executive oversight
    

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53. !
    You can have open source without
    policy guidance
    

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54. !
    You can’t have open source
    without developers
    

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55. !
    You can’t have open source
    without code
    

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56. !
    What does that look like practically?
    

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57. !
    ) Email
    

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58. !
    At GitHub we use GitHub to build GitHub
    

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

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60. zachholman.com/posts/github-communication
    

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61. !
    “Meetings pull you from actual work
    in order to talk about doing work”
    

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63. ‣ 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.
    

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64. !
    Why chat?
    

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65. !
    Chat is inherently asynchronous
    

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66. !
    Tapping someone on the shoulder
    is inherently being a jerk
    

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67. !
    Scheduling a meeting is
    inherently evil
    

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68. !
    Chat has transcripts
    

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69. !
    Chat exposes process
    

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70. * Meet Hubot
    

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71. !
    + Continuous Integration (CI)
    

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72. + Continuous Integration (CI)
    

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73. , Build Status
    

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74. ‣ ~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…
    

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75. !
    /Deploy
    

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76. !
    Nothing gets deployed
    unless tests are green
    

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77. ⚡ Doing it live
    

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78. Meanwhile, back at the pull request…
    

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79. !
    githubengineering.com/deploying-branches-to-github-com
    

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80. 0 ChatOps
    

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81. " 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
    

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82. !
    Who’s doing this?
    

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83. !
    20,000+ government users
    

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84. !
    1,000+ government organizations
    

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85. !
    100+ UK government orgs
    

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86. !
    What about the private sector?
    

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87. Startups
    twitter.github.io
    yelp.github.io
    

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88. netflix.github.io
    adobe.github.io
    

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

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90. !
    To summarize…
    

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91. !
    1. Transparency can save you 

    from the tyranny of process
    

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92. !
    2. Prefer systems that inherently

    capture and expose process
    

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93. !
    3. Minimize friction
    

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94. !
    Open source behind the firewall
    What government can learn from startups and the open source community
    @benbalter
    government.github.com
    government@github.com
    

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95. !
    Appendix
    

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96. A typical deployment flow
    Development Staging Production
    

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

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98. 2 Branch Labs
    

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99. 3 Queuing
    

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

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