Exploring Leadership, Mangement, and Mentorship in Open Source

Leadership. Management. Mentorship. When considering decentralized Open Source projects all of these ideas come into play is a truly unique way. That is because of the nature of Open Source itself: self-motivation and self-determination. The individual has considerably more control over their own destiny with respect to what, why, and how they do work as a contributor when compared to "work" inside a more traditional corporate structure. Further there is often a disparity in goals between the create of an Open Source project and those who go on to maintain that same project months or years down the road.

This talk will explore the value systems that exist in Open Source communities and discuss how they shape the ideas of leadership, management, and mentorship in Open Source projects. It will compare these ontologies in projects (both Open Source and not) of varying size, scope, and focus and demonstrate how they manifest directly into actions or structures in the projects. If you've ever wondered how Open Source gets made, this is the talk for you!

Transcript

1. Exploring Leadership, Mangement, and Mentorship In Open Source Charlie Robbins
 FullStack London 2017
 July 14th, 2017
3. Hello There. Why Get Started. Let’s
4. What am I going to talk about? 3 1 What is Open Source, practically speaking? 2 Open Source methodology, by default. 3 On Value Systems and incentives. 4 Moving mountains of code vs. the long tail in Open Source 5 Bottle your own lightning
5. 4 What am I NOT going to talk about?
6. 4 Open Source Foundations Standards Bodies Open Source Licensing What am I NOT going to talk about?
7. Who am I? Just
8. @INDEXZERO GITHUB TWITTER
9. UX PLATFORM ENG. DIRECTOR FORMER BOARD MEMBER, NODE.JS FOUNDATION FORMERLY FOUNDER at NODEJITSU
11. Creator of … winston forever http-proxy nconf
12. Creator of … winston forever http-proxy nconf and literally hundreds more
14. npm i -g footage \ && footage indexzero
15. npm i -g footage \ && footage indexzero 38 MILLION … … LAST MONTH
17. I know a few things Basically
18. I know a few things Basically Open Source about
20. What is Open Source… … practically speaking?
22. What is Software Development?
23. What is Software Development? … well … good question …
24. … trust me. I know this feel. … Software Development …
26. 
 Reliability & Ops New Feature Requests Technical Debt Planning Support Meetings EMAIL
27. A N D P E O P L E P E O P L E lots of
29. Junior?
 Senior? Product Manager Ops / ITSec Project Manager Engineer UX Designer Individual Contribut or Program Manager Engineeri ng Manager
31. Process Process lots of
33. What then is Open Source… … practically speaking?
35. (Different) Process Process but still lots of
37. DECISION MAKING 1 CONTRIBUTIONS 2 RELEASES 3 SUPPORT 4
38. DECISION MAKING 1 CONTRIBUTIONS 2 RELEASES 3 SUPPORT 4 AND SO MANY MORE PROCESSES … PROCESS!
39. A N D P E O P L E P E O P L E even more
41. “Every good work starts by of software scratching a developer’s personal itch”
43. In other words: no specialization by default there is
45. Open Source BY DEFAULT methodology
47. See… happened was what had
49. IN EARLY 2015 WAS acquired by
50. IN EARLY 2015 WAS acquired by thinking … I was At the time
52. What is Open Source…
53. What is Open Source… … on a company scale?
55. Practically Open Source implementing at
57. Any UI Platform single-point of failure is a for both customer experience A N D developer experience
59. All of requests are these coming (mostly) from other JavaScript developers
61. Thrown fence over the
63. W H Y should work be any different?
64. Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure. — Melvyn Conway, 1967 “ BETTER KNOWN AS CONWAY’S LAW
66. Code OWNERSHIP anti-pattern is an for any organization
67. open source what would do?
68. open source what would do? TRY TO MAKE EVERYONE A CONTRIBUTOR
69. Copyright© 2017 Godaddy Inc. All Rights Reserved.
70. Copyright© 2017 Godaddy Inc. All Rights Reserved. WHAT DOES INTERNAL OPEN SOURCE LOOK LIKE?
71. Copyright© 2017 Godaddy Inc. All Rights Reserved. Science cat says GOOD QUESTION
72. It all starts with support.
73. It all starts with support. treat contributors team members We like
74. and onboarding using Slack & Github Code reviews, ad-hoc Q&A,
75. and onboarding using Slack & Github Code reviews, ad-hoc Q&A, If you time to contribute can make
76. and onboarding using Slack & Github Code reviews, ad-hoc Q&A, If you time to contribute can make then your problems are our problems
77. When you are done & the PR is merged
78. take over bug fixes other support We and When you are done & the PR is merged
80. Modularity helping is really
82. Shifting towards contribution-based a model is
83. Shifting towards contribution-based a model is fundamentally changing HOW work is done at GoDaddy.
84. 0 15 30 45 60 Q1 2016 Q2 2016 Q3 2016 Q4 2016 Q1 2017 Q2 2017 Contributors New Contributors Total "Inner Source" has proven 43 VERY effective.
85. 0 15 30 45 60 Q1 2016 Q2 2016 Q3 2016 Q4 2016 Q1 2017 Q2 2017 Contributors New Contributors Total "Inner Source" has proven 43 VERY effective. Growth of more than linear! contributors is
87. value systems On and incentives
89. are YOU doing YOU are doing? Why what
90. JUST HOW people do
91. JUST HOW people do get BETTER?
93. mentors Everyone someone else
95. We make decisions value-based
97. recognition
 matters How vs. what is recognized
99. Creator Paradox of maintainer vs.
101. all contributors Accept that create value
102. all contributors Accept that create value kentcdodds/all-contributors IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT CODE.
104. prioritize being INCLUSIVE TO basically everyone
106. HAVE A CODE conduct of policy
107. HAVE A CODE conduct of policy TL;DR? READ THIS AND USE IT. contributor-covenant.org
109. OMG DO IT
110. OMG DO IT YES, RIGHT MEOW! right meow!
112. It’s all about CONFLICT RESOLUTION
113. It’s all about CONFLICT for serious… RESOLUTION
114. “
115. Every Open Source governance model is a shallow wrapper (defined broadly) to a basic conflict resolution strategy. — Me? I guess? Today? “
116. Every Open Source governance model is a shallow wrapper (defined broadly) to a basic conflict resolution strategy. — Me? I guess? Today? PLEASE DON’T CALL THIS A LAW “
117. Every Open Source governance model is a shallow wrapper (defined broadly) to a basic conflict resolution strategy. — Me? I guess? Today? PLEASE DON’T CALL THIS A LAW IT’S JUST HUMAN NATURE “
119. Moving mountains of code? of
121. Let’s talk about GOVERNANCE
123. B D F L Simple?
125. Democracy. meritocracy N O T
127. Meritocracy a lie is
128. Meritocracy a lie is MERITOCRACY COMPLETELY IGNORES BASIC POWER & SOCIAL DYNAMICS INHERENT IN all human relationships
130. about we just COMMITTEE
 BASED? How say
131. WITH THE EXCEPTION OF A “CLASSIC” BDFL STRUCTURE IT’S ALL COMMITTEES source: Harvard Law School, ‘17
132. SERIOUSLY. THIS IS WHAT APACHE CONSIDERS “MERITOCRACY” source: Harvard Law School, ‘17
133. SERIOUSLY. THIS IS WHAT APACHE CONSIDERS “MERITOCRACY” source: Harvard Law School, ‘17 Hierarchy implicit I S
134. source: Harvard Law School, ‘17
135. source: Harvard Law School, ‘17 SIMILAR TO BUT NOT EXACTLY NODE.JS’ GOVERNANCE MODEL
136. source: Harvard Law School, ‘17 SIMILAR TO BUT NOT EXACTLY NODE.JS’ GOVERNANCE MODEL Let’s talk about COMMITTEES?
138. IMPLICATIONS lazy consensus of
139. IMPLICATIONS lazy consensus of /** ‘contributor’ !== ‘martyr’ **/
141. The long tail Open Source of … the average project is TINY.
143. Moving mole-hills of code. of
145. Guess what? It’s GOVERNANCE again
147. HOT POTATO the classic governance model
149. ANARCHY the UK not in
150. ANARCHY the UK not in maybe on the Internet
152. burnout Coping with
154. LEARNING handle growth to effectively
155. LEARNING handle growth to effectively gets EASIER. I PROMISE IT IS TRUE.
157. ABANDONDED? is this project is an anti-pattern
159. Turns out that: PUBLIC SHAMING does NOT work
161. Bottle lightning your own
163. a mountain with moving Help
165. Build molehill your own or a hundred!
167. WHEN IN DOUBT disconnect from it
168. WHEN IN DOUBT disconnect from it it is just software
169. {github, twitter}.com/indexzero THANKS. Q&A TIME. MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU