Is this Open Source Project Healthy or Lifeless?

©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Is this Open Source Project
Healthy or Lifeless?
All Things Open October 2020
Dr. Dawn M. Foster (pronouns: she / her)
Director of OSS Community Strategy
fosterd@vmware.com fastwonderblog.com
Open Source at VMware @vmwopensource
blogs.vmware.com/opensource

©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn 2
whoami
• Geek, traveler, reader

• 20+ yr tech career focused on
community & open source  
(Intel, Puppet, Scale Factory, …)

• PhD from the University of Greenwich
focus on Linux kernel collaboration

• OpenUK Board, CHAOSS Board and
Maintainer, Bitergia Advisory Board

• Kubernetes contributor & CNCF
Contributor Strategy SIGPhotos by Mom, Josh Bancroft, Don Park

©2020 VMware, Inc.
Agenda
@geekygirldawn 3
Project Health and Risk
Ownership and Risk
Governance
Final Thoughts and Resources
✨

Project Health and Risk
🩺 🚨

Active, engaged,
helpful, and welcoming
5
Community
Kubernetes CNCF CC BY 4.0

Keeping up with
contributions
6
Responsiveness
Image by Joe Penniston CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Measuring Time to First Response
Data generated by Augur, a CHAOSS project

Measuring Keeping up with Contributions

Active contributors and
organizational diversity
9
Contributor Risk
Image by the CNCF CC BY-NC 2.0

Measuring Contributor Risk - Healthy

Measuring Contributor Risk - Mentoring Opportunity

Measuring Organizational Diversity
Data generated by Bitergia and GrimoireLabs, a CHAOSS project

Regular releases and
security updates
13
Security
Image by darwin Bell CC BY-NC 2.0

Measuring Release Frequency

Code of conduct, events,
leadership, and community
15
Diversity and Inclusion
Photo by David Jakes - CC BY 2.0
https://chaoss.community/metrics

Ownership and Risk
🤔

Lower risk:
participate as equals
17
Neutral Foundations

Higher risk:
single company in control
18
Company-Originated
Photo by Jan Fidler - CC BY 2.0

Ongoing commitment to
collaborate with others
19
Contributing to Neutral Foundations

Governance and Risk
🧐
Materials from the CNCF Contributor Strategy SIG, Governance WG
provided some of the content for this section

Processes for how people
collaborate and make decisions
21
Governance is about People
Photo by Allen and Allen - CC BY 2.0

Licensing, code of conduct,
contribution, and
communication process
22
Minimum Documentation
Photo by Jenni C - CC BY 2.0

Opportunities and
responsibilities for
leaders
23
Leadership
Image by the CNCF CC BY-NC 2.0https://github.com/cncf/sig-contributor-strategy/tree/master/governance

Make informed and deliberate
decisions about how much risk you
can accept and plan to
monitor / mitigate those risks
24
Final Thoughts on Risk
Photo by Mohanraj Sivanandam - CC BY 2.0

@geekygirldawn©2020 VMware, Inc.
Linux Foundation’s TODO Group
https://todogroup.org/guides/
CNCF Contributor Strategy SIG
https://github.com/cncf/sig-
contributor-strategy
CHAOSS
https://chaoss.community/
25
Resources
Photo by Abhi Sharma - CC BY 2.0

@geekygirldawn©2020 VMware, Inc.
Dr. Dawn M. Foster
fosterd@vmware.com
fastwonderblog.com
Open Source at VMware
blogs.vmware.com/opensource
@vmwopensource
26
Thank You!

Is this Open Source Project Healthy or Lifeless?

Is this Open Source Project Healthy or Lifeless?

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