Slides from Open Source Summit Japan 2019

1. Markings of a
Healthy OSS Project
Clement Ho

2. Clement Ho
Frontend Engineering Manager
GitLab
Austin, Texas USA
@ClemMakesApps

3. Single application for the entire
DevOps lifecycle

4. We are hiring
jobs.gitlab.com

5. How do you determine
whether a project is healthy?

6. There are 3 types of projects

7. Dead Surviving Thriving

8. Dead Project
Little to no project activity*
*There are multiple indicators to indicate project activity

10. Surviving Project
Minimal project activity

12. Thriving Project
Vibrant project activity

14. Thriving Project
Have a vibrant future

15. In an ideal world, we want all
OSS projects to have a future

16. But, dependencies are easy to
add but difficult to remove

17. When was the last time you
upgraded a dependency
proactively?

18. Project dependencies are like
committing to a long term
relationship

19. Thriving projects should
1. be easy to contribute to
2. be scalable and maintainable
3. have a growing community
4. have a growing reputation
5. have a good leadership team

20. Thriving projects should be
easy to contribute to

21. Is there a code of conduct?
Is there a license?
Easy to Contribute

22. 64% of users will decide whether to use your project
67% of users will decide whether to contribute to your
project
Based on your project license,
Open source survey 2017 (https://opensourcesurvey.org/2017/)

23. Great resources
• Standard code of conduct used by more than 200k projects
• https://www.contributor-covenant.org/
• Learning more about licenses
• https://tldrlegal.com

24. Are there any well defined first-
time-only issues?
Easy to Contribute

25. 45% of users find it difficult to get
started when contributing to OSS
DigitalOcean October 2018 currents report (https://www.digitalocean.com/currents/october-2018/)

26. Great resources
• Guide that helps people get started in contributing
• https://www.firsttimersonly.com/
• Another resource that people use to search for first
time issue
• https://up-for-grabs.net/

27. Is there documentation? Are
there examples? Are the docs
in multiple languages?
Easy to Contribute

28. Documentation is highly valued,
frequently overlooked, and a means
for establishing inclusive and
accessible communities.
Open source survey 2017 (https://opensourcesurvey.org/2017/)

29. Are community PRs getting
merged? Are they all bug fixes
or a mixture of features?
Easy to Contribute

30. All bug fixes => Surviving
All new features => Perfect
Bug fixes + New features => Realistic Goal

31. Code complete (https://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook-Construction/dp/0735619670)
The industry average is
15-20 errors per 1000 lines of code

32. Thriving projects should have
a growing community

33. Are conversations about the
project taking place in a public
medium?
Growing Community

34. Upgrading to Webpack 4

35. How many users use this
project?
Growing Community

36. Wider distribution of PR authors
indicates a wider community

38. Most of this is
from our CI

39. Thriving projects should have
a growing reputation

40. Any companies or
organizations advocating/
partnering with it?
Growing Reputation

42. Understand the revenue
streams for the project

46. Is there an increase in search
trends? Tutorials, blog posts or
social media conversations?
Growing Reputation

47. https://trends.google.com/

49. Does it have a global
following?
Growing Reputation

51. Thriving projects should be
scalable and maintainable

52. Is the code well tested?
Scalable and Maintainable

53. Don’t let the bar be does it
have tests. Check the tests and
understand them

55. Is there a good ratio of
maintainers vs contributors?
Scalable and Maintainable

56. Don’t let maintainers be the
bottleneck for contributors

57. At GitLab, we aim for a ratio of
1:4 maintainers to contributors

58. Is there a regular release cycle?
Is it documented?
Scalable and Maintainable

59. Bugs happen, security
vulnerabilities happen, a clear
release process helps everyone
trust the project more

60. State of Open Source Security Report 2019 (https://res.cloudinary.com/snyk/image/upload/v1551172581/The-State-Of-Open-Source-Security-Report-2019-Snyk.pdf)

61. Thriving projects should have
a good leadership team

62. Is there more than one
maintainer in case something
unforeseen happens?
Leadership

63. It's a lot of pressure for one
maintainer

64. What Core Contributors Want (https://medium.com/open-collective/what-core-contributors-want-4e7327ac9180)

65. If something happens to the
maintainer, that would greatly
negatively impact the project

66. Is the leadership aligned with
the community?
Leadership

69. Bottom Line:
Project health and future is
indicated by many data points

70. Case Study: Weex

72. Blog posts

74. Documentation
in multiple
languages

76. Clear release
process

78. Has license
Also had code
of conduct (not
in screenshot)

80. Contribution guide
Instructions on
joining mailing list

82. Active PR and
issue activity

84. Inconsistent
release
schedule dates
Odd version
number
increments

86. New committers are
being added to
project

88. 17 committers but
majority from Asia, this
could have better
representation

90. Need more committers
outside of Alibaba group
Working towards growing
the community

91. My evaluation: A-

92. Thank you