Emerging Models for Open Source Contributions

Emerging Models for
Open Source
Contributions
@nayafia for GitHub CodeConf

@nayafia
1980s-late 1990s: BDFL
Late 1990s-mid 2010s: Meritocracy
Mid 2010s-today: Liberal contribution

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Different models solve for
different “market” needs

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Market = users + contributors

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1980s-late 1990s: BDFL
(Linux)

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Fewer users, fewer
contributors

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The BDFL has benefits:

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Centralized leadership and
governance

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Centralized roadmap and
direction

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But BDFLs are also by
definition less democratic.

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And BDFLs made
companies nervous.

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Open source needed
company buy-in to
succeed.

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Late 1990s-mid 2010s: Meritocracy
(Apache)

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Apache flattened the BDFL
model, enabling multiple actors
to participate.

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Anyone (with merit) can
contribute

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Anyone (with merit) can
vote on decisions

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This did wonders for
company buy-in

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(And is partially why open source
thrives today)

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But there was still friction
in the form of one little
clause:

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“When the group felt that the person had "earned" the merit to be part of the
development community, they granted direct access to the code repository….
We call this basic principle "meritocracy": literally, government by merit….
The group was happy to have new people coming in and help, they were only filtering
the people that they believed committed enough for the task and matched the
human attitudes required to work well with others, especially in disagreement.”
Apache Software Foundation

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If you wanted to be part of
a meritocracy, you needed
to prove yourself.

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And you prove yourself by
spending time on a project.

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This makes sense in theory
(only people who’ve
“earned it” get a voice)

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But in practice, it favored
those who could “pay [with
time, money] to play”

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Mid 2010s-now: Liberal contribution
(Node.js)

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More users, more tech
talent than ever before

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Git + GitHub made it
easier for anyone to
jump in on projects

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49% of ppl on top GitHub
projects only contributed once

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More noise from casual
contributors

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Under a meritocracy, this
was a bad thing

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Casual contributors hadn’t
“earned” their voice

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But some people looked at
casual contributors and saw
an opportunity.

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Instead of tuning out the noise,
Node.js decided to harness and
redirect it

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Dropped their CLA
requirement

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“...while I believe these constructs to be well-intended...
Even at their very best, CLAs...seem like asking people to go
to the dentist before their pull request can be considered.”
Bryan Cantrill, Joyent

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Adopted a liberal
contribution policy

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“Getting people to contribute is hard,
When you distribute ownership people contribute more,
And if anyone does something wrong,
Git is good at removing things.”
Mikeal Rogers, Node.js

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And some fun things
started to happen:

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Way more contributions*
* oh yeah there was a fork

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Free marketing:
contributors
became WOM
ambassadors

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Attracted new perspectives,
skills, backgrounds

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“People need to be enabled to do good work.
When you make it clear and obvious what they can do,
More people will do,
And they won’t be people just like you.”
Mikeal Rogers, Node.js

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Another example of
liberal contribution
model: Rust

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Rust went from BDFL (2010) ->
core team (2013) -> federated
structure (2015)

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Rust has 1200+ contributors, many of
whom make regular contributions

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“To the extent practical, we should include a diverse range of
perspectives in both design and decision-making, and
especially include people who are most directly affected by
decisions: users.”
Aaron Turon, Rust

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Some patterns for liberal
contribution models:

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1/ Floodgates, not bottlenecks

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2/ “Consensus seeking” (discuss major
concerns) rather than “consensus” (pure
vote)

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3/ Meet contributors where they
are

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Putting it all together

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Do BDFLs still matter?

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Some centralization is important,
especially in early stage

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BFDLs can help incubate a
project, set vision, and reduce
noise early on

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As project matures, liberal
contribution models can help
with growth

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Project trajectory might look like this:

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Rust, Django, Node started with a
BDFL, then transitioned out when
community got big enough

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“Kings, presidents, and BDFLs have their place,
and there are models of community that are
aided by having them. But the longer I observe
the Django community, the more I realize that
our community doesn’t need them.”
Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Django

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Do BDFLs work as a long-term
strategy?

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Clojure uses a
BDFL model

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Most Clojure contributions made by
a few people

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Clojure is sustainably
supported by Cognitect

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BDFL for the long term still
requires “getting lucky”

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In the absence of a benefactor, the
liberal contribution model is a
pretty good hack to reduce
maintainer burden.

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Will it work for everyone?

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Still too early to tell

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Not every project will fit into this
model

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Highly dependent upon
community and culture

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But liberal contribution models
give us a framework for what
sustainability could look like

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Questions?
Special thanks to @mikeal for making this talk suck less , as well as @steveklabnik and
@puredanger for their valuable perspectives on Rust and Clojure

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