Refresh Teesside May 2013 - Open Source

My talk from the May Refresh Teesside event. "It begins with a need" details my experience turning a closed-source application into an open-source system. What lessons did I learn from it? What advice can I offer you? Why is it important to do?

Transcript

1. Thursday, 16 May 13
2. It begins with a need Rick Trotter @tskynet http://tsky.net Thursday, 16 May 13
3. open source / closed source Source code - the actual ‘code’, or ‘instructions’ people type into computers to create software. Thursday, 16 May 13
4. source code <?php echo “Hello World!”; ?> Thursday, 16 May 13
5. open source / closed source Thursday, 16 May 13
6. Thursday, 16 May 13
7. open source !== Free Thursday, 16 May 13
8. Thursday, 16 May 13
9. it begins with a need My church had no offices, building or admin staff. We were paying for a SaaS member database solution. £1200 per year Thursday, 16 May 13
10. so I built my own Thursday, 16 May 13
11. Kongreg8 Was a simple PHP/MySQL application It held member data for churches Allowed groups to be created Allowed them to email groups Allowed storage and retrieval from anywhere from phones or laptops Thursday, 16 May 13
12. a need becomes a want People started taking notice of what I was doing through word-of- mouth. I had a few UK churches paying £200->£300 per year to host my system. Pound signs started to appear in my head. I wanted a slice of the ‘global action’ Thursday, 16 May 13
13. an act can become an undoing Years passed, life had it’s usual ups and downs. One day I woke up and realised my system was still unattainable to people that needed it.. Thursday, 16 May 13
14. ...I decided to do something drastic... Thursday, 16 May 13
15. ...I decided to give away my software for free to anyone that needed it... Thursday, 16 May 13
16. The moment you decide to open- source your project, you have this gut-wrenching fear you’re about to be abused (real hard) by people much better than you... warning! Thursday, 16 May 13
17. it begins with a need churches need to be able to store information about members and keep in touch with them. Thursday, 16 May 13
18. a need becomes a gift I wrapped a GNU GPL license around my own software. I uploaded it to SourceForge. I waited for the backlash abuse. I anticipated zero downloads. Thursday, 16 May 13
19. Release 1 0 3.75 7.50 11.25 15.00 2010-08 2010-10 2010-12 2011-02 2011-04 2011-06 2011-08 2011-10 2011-12 2012-02 2012-04 2012-06 2012-08 2012-10 2012-12 2013-02 2013-04 Thursday, 16 May 13
20. Whaaaaat!? Thursday, 16 May 13
21. Release 1 - countries 0 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0 United States Netherlands South Africa United Kingdom China Brazil Chile Canada Indonesia India France Portugal Zimbabwe Peru Ghana Nigeria Thursday, 16 May 13
22. Release 2 0 12.5 25.0 37.5 50.0 2010-08 2010-09 2010-10 2010-11 2010-12 2011-01 2011-02 2011-03 2011-04 2011-05 2011-06 2011-07 2011-08 2011-09 2011-10 2011-11 2011-12 2012-01 2012-02 2012-03 2012-04 2012-05 2012-06 2012-07 2012-08 2012-09 2012-10 2012-11 2012-12 2013-01 2013-02 2013-03 2013-04 Thursday, 16 May 13
23. Whaaaaat!? Thursday, 16 May 13
24. Release 2 - countries 0 25 50 75 100 United States South Africa Nigeria Brazil Kenya Australia India Philippines Indonesia United Kingdom Tanzania Ghana Argentina Europe (specific country unknown) Canada France Germany Bahrain Uganda Bolivia Zimbabwe China Haiti Poland Colombia Denmark Cameroon Mexico Ireland Lebanon Hungary Costa Rica Saint Vincent and The Grenadines Swaziland Venezuela Viet Nam Satellite Provider Norway Chile Puerto Rico Belgium Turkey Sweden Thailand Russia Pakistan United Arab Emirates Thursday, 16 May 13
25. a gift is reciprocated People are actually using this? People are asking me questions about it!? Churches are connecting with members! I’m enjoying this and I’m not worrying about getting paid.. Thursday, 16 May 13
26. a gift can wear-out It had been many, many years since I first wrote the system The codebase sucked llama ass I needed to OOP-ify my code, but I didn’t have time or even know how to Thursday, 16 May 13
27. it begins with a need I needed to rebuild my codebase I needed to learn PHP OOP methods Thursday, 16 May 13
28. a need becomes an act I took all my code I threw it in the bin I started again I started to teach myself OOP methods I switched to Github Thursday, 16 May 13
29. an act becomes a gift Thursday, 16 May 13
30. a gift can be a curse There are crazy people out there who will criticise you for no reason There are people who will actively belittle your work It sucks to hear how awful your codebase is Every error is turned into a giant neon sign Thursday, 16 May 13
31. focus on your need Have no time for idiots Be open and honest with your user base Fix what you can Do your best Keep learning Thursday, 16 May 13
32. keep the cycle I’m not happy with my R&D codebase. Needs can change. Technology changes. People change. Thursday, 16 May 13
33. Focus on needs. Make a difference to someone. Thursday, 16 May 13
34. Kongreg8 @kongreg8 http://pizzaboxsoftware.co.uk/ kongreg8 github.com/tsky/kongreg8_os2 Thursday, 16 May 13