Hi all, I was at the FOSS Backstage/Apache EU Roadshow last week, it covered many important topics in open-source software and governance. I also gave a presentation on Distributed Inference using Apache MXNet and Apache Spark.
I also had the opportunity to listen and meet some of the Open source pioneers and discuss various aspects of the project and seek their guidance on how to build successful community around MXNet. Talking to board members gave several insights that could be helpful in growing our community such as having meetings at different time zones, etc., Here is the summary of the various sessions I attended and I hope you'll find it useful. *Keynote by Danese Cooper <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danese_Cooper>: * She is well known for being instrumental in open-sourcing Java while at Sun Microsystems. Danese shared her success stories from her 20 years of Experience at Open source and key elements necessary for open source success - Transparency is not negotiable in Open source, it not enough to ride the movement but also important to shape. Called upon each one of us to review Open-source history, Apache way and help shape the - Open source is all about people, At Aapche we say Community over Code — It is important to speak the truth, it even more important you are kind in telling the truth. - Companies want to use it for strategic advantage: She shared the story of Sun wanting to open source Java since 1999 but there was no alignment amongst the leaders and it happened only in 2006 due to largely due ASF telling them it was going to leave the effort which made Sun to change their mind and come up with the Apache Compromise <https://jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/announce/LetterofIntent.html> . - Develop Patronage and shared the story of how GNOME open source project had world class accessibility tools that Sun was able to use. - Money changes everything even open source - Focus on Tech: Focus on building a differentiator for your project that users would love and want to come to you. *They don’t understand me — Tales from Multicultural trenches.* Bertrand Delacrétaz, Director of Apache and Principal Scientist - Cultural diversity is a great asset in our community but makes it harder to communicate especially on low-bandwidth channels such as email. - Culture does not necessarily mean only origin, it is your affiliation to sports, Education, various facets to life. - When you work on a project led by a community, you count on your fellow contributors to course correct your blindsight -- involve them by being friendly and welcoming - Communication is really complicated and cultures hides it in unexpected places. - To avoid misunderstanding, use simple language. - Avoid misunderstanding by assuming good intentions, ask for clarification - Reformulate your understanding without being aggressive, very often the message is not what you understood. - For the sake of the project find ways to work. - Mistakes happen, don’t be hung up on it and instead find the course correction. - talk less. Code speaks louder than words! — show them the code - prototype, unfinished, ugly it doesn’t matter - Find allies on the other side of the aisle and work with them and make them role models, people tend to trust of the same clan. *Apache Flink:* Fabian Heuske – Cofounder of Apache Flink & Data Artisans. - Apache Flink focuses on growing community in a competitive landscape. - Speaking at Conferences and Meetups helped spread the word about Flink. - *Find early users/partners and growing them into evangelists also helped in its growth* - Find your niche — Stream processing though was hard against biggest players on their turf. - Being just better at the same thing does not cut it. - Community and Minshare - technology is easier to evolve than community, - In 2016, Flink pioneers many important stream processing and added features that no else had. - Being in Apache was very good to get mentorship in building the project and get legal protection. - Mentors associated during incubation helped a lot in growing the community. - Community trumps technology to a large extent. - *Being the first of its kind is also important, unique technology also attracts community.* *The Apache Way - Panel discussion* *If it didn’t happen on the list, it didn’t happen* - works across timezones - being transparent helps when you want to call for help since you have built the trust. - being asynchrnous helps for people who are really volunteering and can find time at night or weekends. - can go back in time and look why we did it in a certain way. - easy to follow for users, they cannot become active if you don't share. *Minimum of 72 hours.* - helps contributors across different timezones. *Voting* - Vote in moderation - Voting to get consensus - use Lazy consensus There is an Apache move and call for Action from contributors to educate and build trust amongst contributors/users. *Open Source at Amazon:* (Aloliata Sharma- Principal Tecnologist, Amazon) - Amazon’s Motivation comes from requests from many of our partners and customers - OSS helps us to innovate and work with our partners effectively - Scaling AWS Services around OSS helps us meet customer demand - Amazon also is seeding the OSS with open data such as satellite, genome data - Amazon works on many open standards and is a member of many OSS foundations such as ASF, PSF, OSI, Linux Foundation, CNI, etc,. - talked about Apache MXNet, GluOn, ONNX. *Mentoring: Your path to Immortality* Rich Bowen, Apache Board of directors - Leave a legacy - You can be immortal by either leaving an extensive body of work or Leave a student who will carry your legacy like how Socrates did with Aristotle - Be careful whom you mentor and don’t create deamons Alexandar the Great was Aristotle’s mentee - Give permission explicitly both Socially and Technically - Withholding trust is a great way to ensure that they don’t stick around to earn trust - Ask people people to do things directly and specific things and it serves a number of purposes including believing in themselves. - I’m always doing things that I can’t do that’s how I get to do them - Don’t say “come help” instead say “please do this task” and point to a ticket - Set a time expectation and offer to help before the deadline. - Don’t be condescending, assuming competence and help only when needed otherwise it signals as lack of trust - Identify people who ask good questions, on other sites(stackoverflow) and bring them. - Identify people who are different from yourself. Thanks, Naveen
