The growth and interconnectedness of open source projects require nowadays a data-driven approach to community management. Growing, nurturing, and facilitating discussions now brings new approaches to community development. The Eclipse Foundation, in a joint effort with Bitergia, is running a new service to cover the knowledge and technology gap needed to scale community managers' skills to the next level.
Fully embracing Open Source Software means to go beyond simply using it – it means to become an active member of the Open Source community. But how do you get there? At Mercedes-Benz, we decided that if we are going to take Open Source seriously, this needs to become deeply ingrained in the company’s “DNA”.
In 2014, the Heartbleed Bug sent shockwaves across the internet and lead to news headlines like: “The Internet Is Being Protected By Two Guys Named Steve”. Although this headline is somewhat humorous, it revealed a crucial vulnerability of FOSS altogether: Oftentimes, important Open Source Software is maintained by a few engaged, but tired and overworked, underpaid individuals. Recent examples include the Log4Shell vulnerability whose consequences aren’t even fully clear yet.
In the past 20 years, software has become increasingly important for the successful operation of any kind of business. This trend is expected to continue in the future. At the same time, the amount of open source technologies used in the software industry has increased rapidly.
While closed software development can be considered daily business, active participation in open source communities still poses quite some challenges for companies coming from more traditional industry sectors like automotive and manufacturing.
Traditionally, a great deal of importance is placed on the value of technical contributions to a project. However, an oft-overlooked aspect of open source development is the community itself, as well as the ability of a project to attract (and maintain) a wide variety of contributors.
This talk will focus on the importance of growing new contributors using real-life lessons, and examples encountered in SWT.
It will begin with non-technical aspects of community management, namely:
