An Incident Post-Mortem

Welcome to the incident post-mortem. Don't worry; there will not be any finger pointing, there will not be any blaming. Let's all work together to work out what went wrong and plan to ensure that it doesn't happen again. Sadly, this incident has been user-facing for decades, with potentially devastating consequences. It's never too late to do better, though. So let's take this hour to work out "why has Open Source been so unnecessarily code-focused?" and get things right next time, yeah?

In this light-hearted talk we will explore the very nature of Open Source and evaluate if there are systemic failings which cause problems for our communities and, worse, our users. This post-mortem will be a fun exercise and hopefully we should all learn something from it.

Transcript

1. GROWING BEYOND 

   THE SOURCE
   A N I N C I D E N T
   POST-M ORTE M
   1 7 - 11 -2 0 1 7
   D R . PA U L J . A D A M S
   

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2. paul.adams@zalando.de
   @therealpadams
   D R . PA U L J . A D A M S
   Search & Personalisation
   Engineering Lead
   1 7 - 11 -2 0 1 7
   

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3. Who is this dude?
   Short Summary
   Timeline
   Impact
   Root Cause Analysis
   Lessons Learned
   Resolution
   TA B LE OF 

   C O N T E N T S
   https://flic.kr/p/Sq9Pkm
   

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4. WHO IS THIS DUDE?
   GOTO Berlin, 2017
   

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5. • Engineering Lead
   • Zalando: Search & Personalisation
   • Crate.io
   • KDAB
   • Kolab Systems…
   • Open Source Lifer
   • Zope / Plone / KDE / Kolab / CrateDB /
   Habitat
   • FSFE / KDE eV / OpenForum Academy
   Photo credit: Bhuvana
   A L I T T L E A B O U T M E
   

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6. GOTO Berlin, 2017
   PAUL’S LAW OF DEVOPS
   

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7. SH OR T SUMMARY
   

   https://flic.kr/p/3XaEMs
   

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8. • Since the 1980s the world of Free Software / Open Source has produced some
   of the world’s most respected software.
   • Especially products for engineers!
   • Otherwise limited success with some examples for hope (Android).
   Given the vast quantities of Open Source software available, the overall lack of
   success points to a potential systematic failing. Is Open Source community
   culture unnecessarily focused on code?
   GOTO Berlin, 2017
   S H O RT SU M M ARY
   

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9. TIMELINE
   https://flic.kr/p/fFXKMu
   

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10. GOTO Berlin, 2017
    INCIDENT TIMELINE
    0 2 . 1 9 8 6
    0 7 . 2 0 1 5
    11 . 2 0 1 7
    WTD 2015
    4
    Freedoms
    goto;
    A C K
    S TAR T A S S I G N
    

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11. August, 2017
    GOTO Berlin, 2017
    A C K N O W L E D G E D ?
    

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12. IMPACT
    https://flic.kr/p/oEKBiM
    

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13. C U S TO M E R I M PA C T
    https://flic.kr/p/ayWfHr
    

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14. B U S I N E S S I M PA C T
    https://flic.kr/p/z1zk53
    

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15. INTERNAL IMPACT
    https://flic.kr/p/e4RpLs
    

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16. R O O T C A U S E
    A N A LY S I S
    https://flic.kr/p/7vUSFh
    

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17. • Why is Open Source so unnecessarily focused on code?
    • Because the entire ecosystem is dominated by coders.
    • Why is the ecosystem dominated by coders?
    • Because we are not very good at welcoming anyone else. Observation bias
    convinces us we don’t need anyone else.
    • Why are we convinced we don’t need anyone beyond coders?
    • Because we kinda misunderstood the system that we built!
    GOTO Berlin, 2017
    WHY, OH WHY, OH WHY…?
    

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18. LESSONS LEARNED
    https://flic.kr/p/gj5E9q
    

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19. WHAT WENT WRONG?
    https://flic.kr/p/UfHvLb
    

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20. • Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
    • Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to
    make it do what you wish.
    • Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute and make copies so you can help
    your neighbor.
    • Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your
    improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole
    community benefits.
    GOTO Berlin, 2017
    THE SYSTEM FAILED BY DESIGN: THE FOUR FREEDOMS
    

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21. WHAT WENT WELL?
    https://flic.kr/p/x8Ao2b
    

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22. WHERE DID WE GET
    LUCKY?
    https://flic.kr/p/ehgZSm
    

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23. R E S O L U T I O N
    https://flic.kr/p/8RXoKt
    

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