Apache Ant Comunity Learnings

Reflecting on the past 17 years I spent in the Ant developer community I tried to identify a few things other communities could learn from our successes and mistakes.

Transcript

1. Apache Ant
   Community Learnings
   FOSS Backstage Micro-Summit, Berlin 2017-11-20
   Stefan Bodewig
   bodewig@apache.org
   

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2. About Me
   Open Source Developer since 1994
   Ant Committer since June 2000
   Release Manager of Ant 1.1 (July 2000) and
   1.10.1 (Feb 2017)
   Apache Member since October 2000
   Senior Consultant at innoQ
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3. Apache Ant
   Apache Ant™, Ant, Apache, and the Apache Ant project logos are trademarks of The Apache Software Foundation.
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4. Commits
   2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
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   Chart by Black Duck Software, Inc / /
   CC-BY https://www.openhub.net/p/ant
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5. Contributors
   2000 2005 2010 2015
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   Original Chart by Black Duck Software, Inc / /
   CC-BY https://www.openhub.net/p/ant
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6. Releases
   2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
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   1.1 1.2
   1.3
   1.4 1.5.0 1.6.0 1.7.0 1.8.0 1.9.0 1.10.0
   Original Chart by Black Duck Software, Inc / /
   CC-BY https://www.openhub.net/p/ant
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7. In the Beginning
   2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
   1.2
   Original Chart by Black Duck Software, Inc / /
   CC-BY https://www.openhub.net/p/ant
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8. How to build a community?
   no idea, honestly
   the right idea at the right time
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9. Small Units of Autonomous Work
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10. User Mailing Lists
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    2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
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    dev
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11. Non-Coding
    Contributors
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12. Advice
    a place for non-devs is essential
    you don't need to answer everything yourself
    but show presence
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13. User Mailing Lists
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    2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
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14. But
    hard to replicate in today's Stack Overflow world
    I'd love to understand what can take it's place
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15. Ant 2
    2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
    1.2
    1.3
    1.4 1.5.0
    Original Chart by Black Duck Software, Inc / /
    CC-BY https://www.openhub.net/p/ant
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16. Backwards Compatibility
    Every new release of Ant breaks my build
    — often stated around Ant 1.2
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17. Discussion
    ... aim is that we are going to break them
    no more than once more. I.e. we should try
    to get a clear vision of what we want to
    achieve with Ant 2.0, document it and
    then stick to it, at least for the near future.
    — https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/678451aa08b8911fa5
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18. Rules for Revolutionaries
    In short:
    1. everybody can propose a "revolution" in a
    subdir
    2. when ready propose merge
    3. when accepted replace original
    https://marc.info/?l=jakarta-
    general&m=86951909307230&w=2
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19. Problems Faced
    too many revolutionaries
    what if the revolution is not accepted?
    mere announcement of revolution stalls
    evolution
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20. Design By Committee
    takes ages
    even more so when you strive for consensus
    still doesn't guarantee to make everybody happy
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21. Result
    lot's of feelings hurt
    fork of the community - twice
    "Ant2" is burnt forever
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22. Advice
    avoid multiple simultaneous revolutions
    be aware that proposed revolutions may fork the
    community
    don't try to force a revolution
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23. Drive-by Contributions
    2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
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    1.6.0
    Original Chart by Black Duck Software, Inc / /
    CC-BY https://www.openhub.net/p/ant
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24. Advice
    embrace Drive-by Contributions
    but you don't have to accept everything
    celebrate every contribution in public
    accept some contributors are only interested in
    small parts
    don't let code ownership get into the way
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25. Integrating new Communities
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26. Advice
    don't put a barrier between old and new
    community
    collective code ownership
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27. Aging Project
    Original Charts by Black Duck Software, Inc / /
    CC-BY https://www.openhub.net/p/ant
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28. Running Out Of Itches
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29. Dangers
    no easy tasks left to do
    "we've already discussed that"
    "backwards incompatible"
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30. Advice
    try to not fix easy bugs (immediately)
    set time aside for mentoring
    better start doing so before it's too late
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31. Thank You
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32. Contact
    Stefan Bodewig
    bodewig@apache.org
    Stefan Bodewig @ innoQ
    stefan.bodewig@innoq.com
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