Who controls your project? Governance in the real world

Talk at the Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom, FOSDEM, Jan 30th 2016.

Many FOSS projects have a carefully designed governance. But to which extent that governance fits the real inner life of the project? In this talk I will present some ways of measuring to which extent governance may be subverted (or not) by real practices, how that can be detected, and tracked. From this base, I will show how a continuous tracking of those behaviors can contribute to a more fair development community, and to increase the trust in the project. The discussion will be framed by the concept of "open development analytics".

Transcript

1. Who controls your project? Governance in the real world Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona jgb@bitergia.com @jgbarah Bitergia / LibreSoft (URJC) Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom, FOSDEM Brussels (Belgium), January 30th 2016 Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 1 / 44
2. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 2 / 44
3. Structure of the presentation 1 A bit of context 2 Governance in the real world 3 Who is contributing? 4 How are changes being reviewed? 5 How are they fixing tickets? 6 Dependency 7 Diversity 8 Open development analytics 9 Bonus track Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 3 / 44
4. A bit of context Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 4 / 44
5. Me and my circumstances Uni Rey Juan Carlos: LibreSoft research team Understanding free, open source software development Data analytics approach Bitergia: From research to the real world Understanding free, open source software development Data analytics approach http://gsyc.es/~jgb http://bitergia.com Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 5 / 44
6. The company The software development analytics company dashboards reports consultancy ... http://bitergia.com Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 6 / 44
7. Governance in the real world Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 7 / 44
8. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 8 / 44
9. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 9 / 44
10. Governance What about “non-formal” governance, working outside governing bodies? What about what’s happening after specific policies are put in place by governing bodies? Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 10 / 44
11. Example 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 11 / 44
12. Example 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 12 / 44
13. Example I’m 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 having an impact the policies we put in place? Do our metrics show our project is as we intended it to be? Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 13 / 44
14. Who is contributing? Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 14 / 44
15. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 15 / 44
16. Affiliation Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 16 / 44
17. How are changes being reviewed? Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 17 / 44
18. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 18 / 44
19. Some reviewers are more equal than others (2) Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 19 / 44
20. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 20 / 44
21. How are they fixing tickets? Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 21 / 44
22. Issues may be dealt with 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 22 / 44
23. Ej: The “mandated” changes of state Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 23 / 44
24. The real changes of state Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 24 / 44
25. Dependency Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 25 / 44
26. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 26 / 44
27. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 27 / 44
28. Code “owned” [Picture in the public domain] “The land belongs to its workers” Emiliano Zapata Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 28 / 44
29. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 29 / 44
30. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 30 / 44
31. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 31 / 44
32. Diversity Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 32 / 44
33. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 33 / 44
34. Geography: time zones in git records Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 34 / 44
35. Geography: GitHub profiles Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 35 / 44
36. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 36 / 44
37. Open development analytics Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 37 / 44
38. 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” Let’s do it! Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 38 / 44
39. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 39 / 44
40. Open development analytics Who is interested? Developers Project managers Community managers Evaluators ... Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 40 / 44
41. Open development analytics Why? Free software produced with open development models is more and more important for IT users, producers, integrators It is different & complex, yet transparent, many details are public, and it can be improved Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 41 / 44
42. 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) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 42 / 44
43. Bonus track Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 43 / 44
44. Preview: the new Kibana-based dashboards http://s.bitergia.com/db-fosdem16 Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona (Bitergia) GrimoireLab: What’s Next? Jan 2016 44 / 44