Open Development Analytics

Slides for my talk "Open Development Analytics: A Step Towards More Project Transparency", delivered at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, Tahoe, CA, USA, in March 29th 3016.

Understanding the inner life of free / open source software projects is important to developers, users and decision makers. But gaining this knowledge is a specialized, time-consuming and error-prone task. Fortunately, software development analytics comes to the rescue: it highlights interesting aspects of a project, tracks relevant patterns, and assists in the early identification of problems. It can be used to study fairness and neutrality, efficiency, control, dependability, and other important aspects of a project. Providing the results of those analytics allows for a new level of transparency and self-awareness of the community, leading to the concept of "Open Development Analytics". The talk will explore this concept, presenting also some specific examples of how to use it in the real life of software development projects.

Transcript

1. Open Development Analytics A Step Towards More Project Transparency Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona jgb@bitergia.com @jgbarah Bitergia / LibreSoft (URJC) Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit Lake Tahoe (CA, USA), March 29th 2016 Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 1 / 60
2. Open Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 2 / 60
3. Software development http://xkcd.com/844/ Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 3 / 60
4. Analytics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 4 / 60
5. Open Development Analytics Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 5 / 60
6. Structure of the presentation 1 A bit of context 2 Transparency and governance 3 A personal journey 4 Open development analytics 5 Who is contributing? 6 How are changes being reviewed? 7 Dependency 8 Dealing with issues? 9 Diversity 10 Bonus track Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 6 / 60
7. A bit of context Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 7 / 60
8. Me and my two hats Uni Rey Juan Carlos: LibreSoft research team Understanding free, open source software Data analytics approach Bitergia: From research to the real world Understanding software development Data analytics approach http://gsyc.es/~jgb Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 8 / 60
9. The company The software development analytics company dashboards reports consultancy ... http://bitergia.com Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 9 / 60
10. Transparency and governance Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 10 / 60
11. Who drives open software developoment? Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 11 / 60
12. Who drives open software development A community Persons (and organizations) with common goals different interests Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 12 / 60
13. Working together Self-awareness Governance Transparency Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 13 / 60
14. Self-awareness Open development communities need to be self-aware data is the source for awareness... when it can be used for “sensing” The same applies to any open organization Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 14 / 60
15. Governance “Establishment of policies, and continuous monitoring of their proper implementation, by the members of the governing body of an organization. It includes the mechanisms required to balance the powers of the members (with the associated accountability), and their primary duty of enhancing the prosperity and viability of the organization.” http://businessdictionary.com Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 15 / 60
16. Governance “Establishment of policies, and continuous monitoring of their proper implementation, by the members of the governing body of an organization. It includes the mechanisms required to balance the powers of the members (with the associated accountability), and their primary duty of enhancing the prosperity and viability of the organization.” http://businessdictionary.com Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 16 / 60
17. Transparency It comes in two flavors Transparency to the community (fairness) Transparency to third parties (trust) Which for open organizations are kind of the same Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 17 / 60
18. Transparency Example of rationale (OpenStack): “OpenStack favors disclosure and transparency to promote sharing and collaboration within the OpenStack community” https://www.openstack.org/legal/transparency-policy/ Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 18 / 60
19. Transparency: showing the data is not enough Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 19 / 60
20. We need analytics (1) I’m a company investing heavily in a project. I’m hiring developers, supporting the foundation, sponsoring activities... Are my developers treated according to the policies? Are we getting integrated in the community? How do we compare with other companies of similar characteristics? Are we having reasonable metrics, according to the current stated policies and agreements? Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 20 / 60
21. We need analytics (2) I’m an independent developer, devoting a large fraction of my time to this project. Are my initiatives being considered on fair terms? Are employees of other companies dealing with me the same way they do with their company colleagues? Am I considered based on my merits? Am I having reasonable metrics, according to the current stated policies? Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 21 / 60
22. We need analytics (3) We’re a project foundation, interested in being neutral, inclusive, in making life easy to all contributors Are newcomers being treated as they should? Are we balancing the interests of companies and independent developers? Do we have subprojects which are outliers in terms of performance, inclusiveness, etc. Are the policies we put in place having some impact? Do metrics show our project is as we intended it to be? Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 22 / 60
23. A personal journey Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 23 / 60
24. Counting lines of code http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc/redhat62-v1/redhat62sloc.html Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 24 / 60
25. Counting lines of code (revisited) http://gsyc.es/~mortuno/articulos/counting_potatoes.pdf Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 25 / 60
26. Key takeaways (2001) Interesting questions about software development can be answered with data There is a lot of value in doing it in the open!!! But: Data retrieval is not that easy We need FOSS tools We need comparable results We need visualizations Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 26 / 60
27. Open development analytics Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 27 / 60
28. A new dimension of openness When we develop in the open we produce a great deal of data about how we develop “Show me the development data” as a step beyond “show me the code” Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 28 / 60
29. From open development to open development analytics Information about code, community, development for open development projects can be retrieved, organized, analyzed Let’s publish analytics results & data Open Development Analytics: A new standard for transparency Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 29 / 60
30. Open development analytics Who may benefit? Developers Project managers Community managers Evaluators ... Anyone interested in the health of the project Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 30 / 60
31. Who may benefit? Slide used by Jim Zemlin at LF Collab 2016 Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 31 / 60
32. Some areas of interest Performance (understanding activity) Company participation (beyond copyright notices) Transparency (available information) Auditing (certify participation, experience, etc.) Profiling (key people, companies) Neutrality (fair treatment) Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 32 / 60
33. Who is contributing? Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 33 / 60
34. The influence of companies In many projects, companies are main drivers They join forces to push the project... ...but they watch each other, look for balances They contribute money, resources... ...and direct development effort Having an accurate, transparent picture is very important! Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 34 / 60
35. Affiliation Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 35 / 60
36. How are changes being reviewed? Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 36 / 60
37. Some reviewers are more equal than others http://blog.bitergia.com/2015/12/30/ some-developers-are-more-equal-than-others/ Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 37 / 60
38. Neutrality? q q q q q q q q 0 1 2 3 250 500 1000 2000 4000 Number of accepted reviews Iterations per accepted review (median) Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 38 / 60
39. Dependency Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 39 / 60
40. Apache Pony Factor In words of Daniel Gruno: We [the ASF] created a term we have coined “Pony Factor” (because ASF is full of ponies, or people who think they are ponies). Pony Factor (PF) shows the diversity of a project in terms of the division of labor among committers in a project. Pony Factor is determined as: “The lowest number of committers whose total contribution constitutes the majority of the codebase” https://ke4qqq.wordpress.com/2015/02/08/pony-factor-math/ Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 40 / 60
41. Bitergia Elephant Factor Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 41 / 60
42. Bitergia Elephant Factor Projects can benefit from powerful collaborations from companies (elephants). The elephant factor shows the diversity of a project in terms of the division of labor among companies (by mean of developers affiliated with them). Elephant factor is determined as: “The lowest number of companies whose total contribution (in commits by their employees) constitutes the majority of the commits” Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 42 / 60
43. Code “owned” “The land belongs to its workers” Emiliano Zapata Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 43 / 60
44. Code “owned” The code changes over time. The current version is “owned” by the people who produced it. The code “belongs” to those who wrote it. Zapata factor (work in progress): “The lowest number of developers for whom the total number of lines of code they “own” (were last touched by them) constitutes the majority of the lines of code” Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 44 / 60
45. Code “owned” The code “belongs” to companies who employ developers changing it. United Fruit factor (work in progress): “The lowest number of companies for whom the total number of lines of code they “own” (were last touched by their employees) constitutes the majority of the lines of code” Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 45 / 60
46. Pony / elephant factors for some projects Pony Factor Elephant Factor Commits (excl bots) OpenNebula 4 1 12K Eucalyptus 5 1 25K CloudStack 14 1 42K OpenStack >100 6 126K CloudFoundry 41 1 60K OpenShift 10 1 15K Docker 15 1 18K Kubernetes 12 1 7K [July 2015] Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 46 / 60
47. Dealing with issues? Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 47 / 60
48. Issues may be processed not as intended Policy (or recommendations) may mandate transitions but are they real? Time to close when same company reporting / fixing? Time to close for external bug reports? Time to close depending on who reports? Who opens tickets that nobody cares about? Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 48 / 60
49. Ej: The “mandated” changes of state Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 49 / 60
50. The real changes of state Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 50 / 60
51. Diversity Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 51 / 60
52. Geography Geographical diversity is difficult to assess Companies can keep detailed records, but open communties are different Fortunately, some tools leave traces... This allows for better knowledge ...and better tracking of initiatives Example: policies to enlarge the number of developers in XXX region Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 52 / 60
53. Geography: time zones in git records Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 53 / 60
54. Geography: GitHub profiles Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 54 / 60
55. Gender: Analyzing by name Current situation of gender imbalance in OpenStack Gender Developers Commmits Commits/devel Female 750 14,647 19.5 Male 4,632 207,112 44.7 Only names with more than 80% of certainty. [Work in progress, preliminary results] Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 55 / 60
56. Bonus track Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 56 / 60
57. Preview: the new Kibana-based dashboards http://s.bitergia.com/db-fosdem16 Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 57 / 60
58. License c 2016 Bitergia Some rights reserved. This presentation is distributed under the “Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0” license, by Creative Commons, available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 58 / 60
59. Credits (1) “Man With Two Hats” Statue by Henk Visch, located in Otawa, Canada Picture by Lezumbalaberenjena in Wikimedia Commons License: Public domain https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: Man_With_Two_Hats_Ottawa_Statue_by_lezumbalaberenjena.jpg “Napoleon’s Russian campaign of 1812” Original by Charles Minard License: Public domain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard#/media/File: Minard.png “Aged Come In We’re Open” Picture by Czarina Alegre in Flickr License: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/fjGamh Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 59 / 60
60. Credits (2) “Good code” Comic by Randall Munroe, XKCD 844 License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 http://xkcd.com/844/ “Crowd at FOSDEM 2008” Picture by Jes´ us Corrius in Flickr Licenses: Creative Commmons Attribution 2.0 http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcorrius/2302302707/ “Elephant” Picture by ajoheyho License: Creative Commons Public Domain https://pixabay.com/en/elephant-african-bush-elephant-114543/ “Emiliano Zapata” License: Public Domain Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) Open Development Analytics March 2016 60 / 60