Social Sourcing:
The story of GetPaid, ideas for
organizing software projects
Christopher Johnson
ifPeople | www.ifpeople.net
Plone Symposium 2008
New Orleans, LA
June 3, 2008

Outline
● Who, What, Why?
● What is Social Sourcing?
● Why is it important for Free Software?
● The Story of GetPaid & Social Sourcing
● Implications for Plone

Who am I?

What is GetPaid?
● eCommerce in Plone built on Zope3
– credit card processing
– order management
– shipping, fulfillment, inventory management
– 2 releases; 10,600+ lines of code
● Community
– 105 members on mailing list
– 34 contributors (15+ in 2008)

Why am I here?
● Voice for non-developers!
● Make Plone better: software, community,
marketing
● Get feedback and ideas (time for another
round of social sourcing for GetPaid!)

What is Social Sourcing?
Def 1: Open Source Software for Civil
Society Organizations (ie NGO/non-
profit)

What is Social Sourcing?
Def. 2: A project organizing approach
that gets diverse stakeholders to
participate to the software making
process, focusing on the value of
product.

Similar Process: Charrette
● Charrettes bring together people from
multiple perspectives at the design stage for
an intense collaboration.
– Root: French for “cart”
– More than just “crunch time”, it is also core to an
Integrated Design Process

Charrette
● Key: collaborative decision making in design

Data Center Charrette
● People from hardware, software, security,
energy, real estate and more
– Resulting design:
● 89% energy use reduction
● Equivalent computing power
● Increased reliability
– See rmi.org

Why is this relevant?
● Open Source Software projects are
driven by developers
==> Many projects naturally use agile
processes (sprints, pairing)
==> Developers, like architects, often
reticent to get “human” input
==> Difficult for non-developers to
participate in shaping outcome

Why is this relevant?
● Diverse perspectives enrich the product
==> Expectations from client clarified
upfront
==> Opportunities and constraints explored
fully

Why is this relevant?
● The quality of the process determines
the quality of the outcome
==> How you get it done determines
what you get done
==> Position product to have a strong
community

● Plone:
– Flexible + very useful out of the box
● 2006 PloneConf ecommerce BOF
– Conclusion: Need state of the art payment
processing framework

● To action! But...
– /me was new to community, not a developer, and
with no ecommerce software experience...but
loves problem solving!
– “Social sourcing” helped to be transparent,
inclusive, and improve the product.
● <DOCTYPE FREESOFTWARE PUBLIC...>
<div id=”entrepreneur”>
...don't be afraid!

Social Source v1.0 Alpha
●
– Study the market (benchmark)
– Put together a compelling plan
– Recruit the right people
– Engage a wide base in refining requirements
– Ask for money
– Celebrate successes
– Sustain it: fun, organization, motivation
– Regroup, review, and restart...

● Step 1: Get oriented
– What is already out there?
– What do we know about those things?
– Why do we need something else?
● Result:
– Reference on Plone Commerce:
http://plonegetpaid.com/why/plone-commerce-backgro
– Need for the product:
http://plonegetpaid.com/why/need-for-this-product

● Step 2: Make a plan
– What should we do?
– How can we do it?
– Who does it benefit and how?
– Make it pretty to look at...
● Results:
– Goal for GetPaid M1: Donation handling
– Sponsorship plan:
www.plonegetpaid.com/sponsor

● Step 3: Recruit leaders and participants
– The project needs a qualified “sheperd”
– Variety of expertise are needed
● Result:
– Lead architect: Kapil Thangavelu
– Organizer: Christopher Johnson
– NGO Liason: Jon Stahl
– Several more have stepped up!
– Developers and UI: various (see Credits)

● Step 4: Refine the requirements
(participative)
– Get input of users, developers, user interface
experts, consultants/supporters
● Results:
– Architecture outline
– User stories
– Estimates and plan

● Step 5: Ask for money!
– If you don't ask, you won't get it...
– Tips for asking:
● Connect needs with value
● Be transparent
● Be patient and persistent
● Result:
– Raised over US$12,000 for first release
– Contributions page

● Step 5: Don't forget...
– Be accountable and transparent

● Step 6: Celebrate successes!
– Reward and recognize people and their
contributions
● Deployments, releases, fixes
– Communication is important!
● Results:
– Blog, mailing list
– Celebrations...

● Ongoing:
– Make it fun!
– Keep it organized!
– Keep people motivated!
● Results:
– 4 Sprints (UNC, Google, Argentina, Naples)
– Google Code (wiki, issues, code)
– Blog, mailing lists, channel (#getpaid)

Social Source v1.0 Alpha
●
– Study the market (benchmark)
– Put together a compelling plan
– Recruit the right people
– Engage a wide base in refining requirements
– Ask for money
– Celebrate successes
– Sustain it: fun, organization, motivation
– Regroup, review, and restart...

What next?
● Time for a new round of social sourcing for
GetPaid!
● Encourage flow back into product of
customizations and extensions
● Capture feedback from users, developers to
improve project
● Need technical leaders in various areas

Implications for Plone?
● Plone is great!
● Lots of work heading into the future...but
towards what?
– Perhaps Plone could benefit from process
improvements that would:
● Clarify direction and identity
● Provide more inclusive design process
● Improve the overall product
● Strengthen Plone community

Plone Creation Process
● Overall vision:
– Open process associated with vision?
● How can users be more involved?
– Place to document it?
● Features:
– PLIPs process determines features...but you
have to be a “core developer” to make a PLIP
● Something before PLIPs but more specific than
vision?
● Way to involve non-developers?

Getting Involved
● Download it:
http://code.google.com/p/getpaid
● GetPaid mailing list:
http://groups.google.com/group/getpaid-dev
● IRC: #getpaid
● Features, Sponsorship etc:
http://www.plonegetpaid.com

Thank you!
● Special thanks:
– Kapil, Perrito, Lucie, Maurits, ChrisW
– OneNW, Contextual Corp, Totsie.com, Trees for
Life
● Contact info:
– Christopher Johnson
– cjj (at) ifpeople.net
– www.ifpeople.net
– irc: cjj