bay area open source meet-up: things i learned about open source the hard way

Things I Learned about Open Source...The Hard Way OS in Big Organizations II: Failures, Success Stories & Best PracticesSAP Developer’s Group

By Mark R. Hinkle@[email protected]

Things I Learned about Open Source…The Hard Way

Slides Available on Slideshare:

http://www.slideshare.net/socializedsoftware

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• My open source experiences

• The power law of open source

• Open source is about collaboration not free labor

• How open source provides leverage

• Signs of a healthy open source project

• The role foundations can play in open source projects

Agenda



• Manage Citrix Open Source Business Office

• Apache CloudStack Committer and PMC Member

• Advisory boards Gluster and Xen Project

• Joined Citrix via Cloud.com acquisition July 2011

• Zenoss Core open source project to 100,000 users, 1.5 million downloads

• Former LinuxWorld Magazine Editor-in-Chief

• Open Management Consortium organizer

• Author - “Windows to Linux Business Desktop Migration” – Thomson

• NetDirector Project - Open Source Configuration Management

About Me



The Hard Road to “Enlightenment”• Non-contributing user• Open source desktop advocate• Non-OSI approved license • Open core • LinuxWorld Editor-in-Chief aka “brainwashing”• Open sourcing to an organization• Open sourcing to another organization• Still searching for open source nirvana



The Power Law of Open Source



"No matter who you are, most of the smartest people

work for someone else.”

Joy’s Law (the Open Source Advantage)



The Power Law of Open Source



How it Works

• Large user base to move the development needle (only a small number of users give back)

• Context over Code (user generated improvements are better informed, use code often worse)

• Collective Intelligence bears more leverage because coordination isn’t needed as much (Collaborative Intelligence)



Open source is about collaboration not just free (as in beer) labor



Open Source StrategyOpen Source 2005 – Tom

Sawyer Open Source 2014 – John Nash



Avoid The Pareto OptimalityPareto efficiency, or

Pareto optimality, is a state of allocation of

resources in which it is impossible to make any

one individual better off without making at least one individual

worse off.



How open source provides leverage



How Consumers Gain Leverage

End-User Solution Providers

Lower Cost Typical lower than proprietary alternative

QualityMany eyeballs make all bugs shallow

User controlled ConsumptionOnly buy support when needed

ContinuityNo Need for Escrow or Worries about Company

behind code

Faster release cyclesQuick bug response and aggressive release cycles

RecruitingOften find talent in projects

Agility

Reduce R&D costs

Product Management - Product Development – Testing – Documentation – Translation

Ops Cost Reduction

Customer Support – Distribution - Capital Software Costs*

Sales and Marketing

Partner Integration - Brand Awareness - Pre-Sales



Open Source “In The Mythical Man-Month, Fred Brooks observed that programmer time is not fungible; adding developers to a late software project makes it later. As we've seen previously, he argued that the complexity and communication costs of a project rise with the square of the number of developers, while work done only rises linearly….if Brooks's Law were the whole picture Linux would be impossible.

Gerald Weinberg's classic The Psychology of Computer Programming supplied what, in hindsight, we can see as a vital correction to Brooks. …where developers are not territorial about their code, and encourage other people to look for bugs and potential improvements in it, improvement happens dramatically faster than elsewhere.”

Eric S. Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar



Signs of a Healthy Open Source Project



• Code Velocity

• Committers

• Committer Reputation

• User-driven or Vendor-Driven

Innovation

• User Activity

• Corporate Support*

• Reputation of Foundation*

VETTING OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS



OPEN SOURCE ANALYSIS

http://www.openhub.net http://activity.openstack.org



Github

• Awesome hosting service• Wild west• Easy to follow and fork• Nice social networking

features• Companies can great

“official” repos e.g. Netflix



Developer Diversity

https://www.openhub.net/p/Hadoop/contributors?sort=latest_commit



• Flaw fixed in April 7, 2014• Demonstrates fragility of unmanaged

open source • Pre-Heartbleed 1 full-time developer, $7k

per year in donations• Massive failure of risk analysis• >500,000+ websites affected• Tens of millions of dollars in lost

productivity and SSL reissues, billions of dollars in unsecured risk

• Core Infrastructure Initiative funding via Linux Foundation Collaborative Initiative to shore up the project employee dedicated developers and provide oversight backed by Amazon, Adobe,Bloomberg,Dell,Google,HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcom, Rackspace, Salesforce, VMware

Case Study: Fragile Open Source

Heartbleed OpenSSL



Development Velocity

Source: OpenHub.com

Flat Nagios

Growing Hadoop



Google Trends: Technology Buzz

Source Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=nagios%2C%20Hadoop&cmpt=q



The role foundations can play in open source projects



How Foundations Can Help OSS• Vendor neutral • Enforce a meritocracy• Provide a shield for developers • Ensure continuity of project beyond a single company• Provide vehicle for pooling resources • Create ecosystems• Not all are especially well-funded to accomplish this

mission



The Linux Foundation• Founded 2007

• Home of Linux Kernel, Xen Project, Open Daylight

• Companies and individuals can join

• Governed by voting classes both corporate and individual

• ~230 corporate members

• $15.6 million in revenue



Apache Software Foundation• Founded in 1999

• Home of Apache HTTPD, Apache Tomcat, Apache

• Only individuals can join

• Sponsors have no say in project

• Great development methodology

• Minimal corporate financial backing

• $1.2 million annual income



Eclipse

• Project started in 2001

• Foundation started in 2004

• Foundation kickstarted growth

• 204 members companies

• 175 active projects

• $4.1 million a year in income



Vanity Foundations

• Foundations to align and build brand

• Very focused on a single technology

• Easier for companies to direct resources

• Newer model • May not be non-profit



Non-Profit Status for Software Foundations• Recent Yorba decision by IRS

rejects non-profit status

• OpenStack Foundation not a non-profit but trying

• New foundations coming online this year CloudFoundry and .Net

• Less effective use of donations without tax-exempt status

• May lead to international non-profit organizations

• International law could cause upheaval and introduce new legalities to OSS ecosystem



CONTACT MEHappy to Chat about Open Source, Cloud or Pittsburgh Sports

Professional: [email protected]: [email protected]

Phone: 919.228.8049

Professional: http://open.citrix.comPersonal: http://www.socializedsoftware.com

Twitter: @mrhinkle

mailto:[email protected]



http://open.citrix.com/

http://www.socializedsoftware.com/

http://www.cloudstack.org/

bay area open source meet-up: things i learned about open source the hard way

Technology

open source experiences

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open source nirvana

healthy open source

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tom sawyer open source

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hard way os