The TODO Group will be hosting a formal open source office track at the Open Source Leadership Summit in Tahoe next year. We hosted a track last year and encourage the wider community to submit your proposals. We are especially interested in proposals that examine the structure of existing open source programs, what has helped those programs succeed (or fail!), how company culture has shaped those programs, and any lessons learned along the way.
Gil Yehuda (@gyehuda) had an opportunity to keynote at LinuxCon Japan 2016 about the rise of open source program offices, the presentation is provided below: See the presentation If you’re interested in joining the TODO Group, please reach out over Twitter!
More than ever, traditional companies are embracing open source and find that it can get out of control if they don’t have a coordinated plan to manage it. And what do I mean by a traditional company? Companies that are pre-open source (or born before 1995). Also companies that are not in the hardware or software product space, but more in the services space – financial, telecom, healthcare etc. These companies often do not have open source development models or knowledge in their DNA.
I ran into several folks this past week at OSCON who expressed a keen interest in creating a dedicated role for Open Source at their respective companies. So what was stopping them? One simple thing: every single one of them was struggling to define exactly what that role means. Instinctively we all have a feeling of what an employee dedicated to Open Source might do, but when it comes time to write it down or try to convince payroll, it can be challenging.
Note: This blog post and interview is cross-posted on Linux.com Starting an open source program office is a growing trend among companies that leverage open source software in their business strategies. Led by an open source program officer, open source offices can range in size from one or two advocates on an engineering team to an entirely separate R&D division. But the goal is the same: to strategically address common challenges companies face when adopting open source software.
Last week, the TODO Group led a track at the Collaboration Summit which featured a variety of talks dedicated to open source program management. today we are happy to host the TODO (open source program management) track at #lfcollab today, we'll be tweeting! pic.twitter.com/h8zOxn4D9F — TODO Group (#OSPO) (@todogroup) March 30, 2016 Listed below are some of slides from TODO members given at the Collaboration Summit: Gil Yehuda (@gyehuda) runs the Open Source Programs Office (OSPO) at Yahoo and presented a talk highlighting some of the governance issues facing corporate based open source program offices.
Yesterday, the TODO Group announced new members (Autodesk, CapitalOne, Netflix, and SanDisk) and moving to the Linux Foundation as a Collaborative Project. We are excited as this move will help formalize the group legally (see our charter) and allow us to scale the group with additional members. The Linux Foundation provides a great home for us and is a very trusted host with collaborative projects such as the NodeJS Foundation, Open Container Initiative and LetsEncrypt.
No matter the size of the organization, running an Open Source Programs Office requires staying on top of several things at once. While the processes between organizations might vary, many of run into a common set of needs and have subsequently developed a set of tools to manage corporate scale open source needs. As part of the TODO Group, we have started sharing those tools with each other and the open source community at large.
Growing a successful open source project takes more than code; it takes a healthy community where contributors can engage in deep conversations with respect. A code of conduct can be one important tool in helping a community uphold its own values. Last year, the TODO Group explored building a code of conduct template. Our goal was to share our experiences with each other, and encourage other communities to consider similar principles when building their open source projects.
Update: We will not be continuing work on the open code of conduct. See our followup post for more information. We believe open source communities should be a welcoming place for all participants. Through our experiences within the TODO Group, we strongly believe that a code of conduct helps set the ground rules for participation in communities and helps build a culture of respect. By adopting and honoring a code of conduct, communities can communicate their values, set expectations and outline a process for dealing with unwelcome behavior when it arises.