This document discusses the importance of marketing for open source projects. It begins by introducing different tracers that existed with varying levels of popularity, using this as an example of how marketing can impact awareness and usage of a project. The document then defines marketing as promoting and distributing an idea to gain attention and resources. It acknowledges common reasons why marketing may not occur for open source projects and argues that good marketing does not happen by accident. Finally, it provides an overview of various marketing tools for open source like documentation, blog posts, videos, conferences and emphasizing community-building. The key message is that marketing is necessary to capture attention for a project in an environment with many options and that everything a project does can be a form of marketing

1. Marketing Your Open
Source Project
Deirdré Straughan

2. About Me
Bio
• 30 years in tech: documentation, customer support,
community, open source, books, articles, blogs,
videos, and, yes, marketing.
• Lots more about me – mostly not tech – at
beginningwithi.com, @deirdres
Disclaimer

3. What you’ll learn in this talk
• What is marketing (for open source)
• Why you need it
• How to do it

4. “If you build it, they
will come.”

5. Just “building it” is
rarely enough.

6. A Tale of Tracers

7. DTrace

8. ftrace
• A general-purpose tracer written by Steven Rostedt.
• Integrated directly into the Linux kernel since 2008.
• Great technology, great code, great documentation.
• Critically important: it was in mainline Linux.
• But, by 2014, practically no one had heard of it and
no one used it.

9. (screenshot ftrace repo)

10. Sysdig

11. BPF/bcc
• Based on Berkeley Packet Filter (1992).
• PLUMgrid extended BPF (eBPF) to do software-
defined networking, and added tracing features.
• PLUMgrid is no more, but eBPF is in Linux.
• Provides programmatic capabilities
necessary for an advanced tracer.
• bcc: a front end for BPF.

12. Moral of the Story
• Four tracers:
All good, two well known, two not.
• The difference is marketing.

13. What is marketing?
“The process or technique of promoting, selling,
and distributing a product or service.”
Merriam-Webster

14. “Why does my open
source project need
marketing?”

15. What does it mean to market open source?
You’re not selling “stuff.”
You’re selling ideas.
You’re asking people to dedicate something
valuable – their time and attention
– to your ideas.

16. Why is this difficult?

17. The open source world

19. How did YOU
choose which
projects to work on?

20. How many great
projects did you miss
because you never
heard of them?

21. In open source,
marketing is about
capturing attention
and resources in a
crowded
environment.

22. What resources do projects need?
The time and effort of people:
• Users
• Contributors: independent, and/or assigned to a
project by their employer (or hired specifically to
work on it).

23. What resources do projects need?
Money:
• Sponsorships, salaries, bounties, investment,
donations – whatever will allow people to keep
working on it.

24. Nevertheless…

25. In open source,
marketing often fails
to happen.
Why?

26. Some reasons marketing doesn’t happen
“Eww, marketing.”

27. Some reasons marketing doesn’t happen
Marketing is considered a “soft” skill.

28. Some reasons marketing doesn’t happen
For a project in its early stages or without financial
backing, “we can’t afford it.”

29. Some reasons marketing doesn’t happen
No one working on the project knows how to do
marketing.

30. Marketing is not evil.

31. Good marketing
does not happen by
accident.

32. The Tools of Open
Source Marketing

33. Code
• The basic code
– Architected for participation
– Well-commented
• Tools
• Tests
• Examples and sample code

34. Documentation
• Good documentation is ABSOLUTELY
CRUCIAL.
• It can also be very hard to achieve.

35. Non-Code Content
• How to’s, blueprints, architectures, and other technical
material
• Blog
• Videos & Screencasts
• Articles and Press (trade press, scholarly journals,
refereed conferences)
• Books
• Education
• Logo/mascot

36. How-To’s, Blueprints, Architectures, etc.
• Good documentation explains what you can do
with the software: commands, parameters, how
to interpret output.
• This is necessary, but not sufficient.
• Other kinds of technical content are needed
explain how and why to use it.

37. A note about white papers
• Have an even worse rep than marketing in
general.
• Nowadays tend to be aimed at C-level execs.
• …which may be relevant to your project,
especially if you are going after an enterprise
market.

38. Blog
• Yes, have one!
• News and technical posts are both appropriate.
• There is no canonical length.
• If you’re not a great writer (that’s ok, most
people aren’t), get help.

39. • Videos of people (talking).
• Screencasts.
• Not “slick” may be more
appropriate.
• YouTube is your friend.
• Attention spans are short.
• Subtitles/captions.
Video and Screencasts

40. Articles and Press
Refereed journals:
• Communications of the ACM
• USENIX ;login:
Trade press:
• Get PR help with this. Getting
press coverage is an art, not a
science.
• Yes, PR does still matter.

41. Books
• Great marketing tool.
• Possibly a great career
move.
• Tons of work.
• Never write a book for
the money!

42. Education
• Tutorials
• Workshops
• Classes
• Certifications

43. Content Efficiency
Time needed to create different kinds of content:
• Informal talk (video it!): 10 mins-1 hour, not counting
video edit time
• Blog post: 1-10 hours
• Formal presentation: 3-10 hours
• Published article: 3-30 hours
• Technical paper: 5-50 hours
• Book: 2000 hours

44. Shortcuts to Developing Content
• Bug database
• Email threads
• irc/Slack discussions
• Code comments
• Rule of thumb: if you have to answer the same
question more than 3 times, put the answer
somewhere easy to find (FAQ, blog post, wiki).

45. Places to put content
• GitHub repo (necessary, but not sufficient)
• GitHub pages
• Other website and/or wiki
• Blog

46. Discoverability
• Project names
• Use keywords, tags, and categories:
– GitHub topics
– Blog tags and categories
– YouTube tags
– SEO keywords

47. Search Engine Optimization
• Content, content, content!
• …and keep it fresh.

48. Meetups, talks, and conferences
• Are a source of content.
• Help with community building.
• Earned speaking slots > paid ones.
• Start small / local, work your way up to large
national and international conferences.
• Can’t do them all? Have technical evangelists.
• Run your own conference?

49. Social media
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Facebook?
• Whatever else comes along

50. Two-way communication
• Mailing lists
• irc
• Slack

51. Have a Cute Logo / Mascot

53. This one marketing
secret will change
your life…

54. Everything that
touches the
customer
is marketing.

55. EVERYTHING

56. Community
• Culture
• Code of conduct
• Diversity
• Responsiveness
• Kindness

57. Attitude Matters
“Around 50 percent of respondents had witnessed
bad behavior in open source, and they said that's
often enough to keep them away from a particular
project or community.”
Wired on the GitHub Open Source Survey

58. The newbie experience
• Welcome
• Getting started materials
• FAQs
• Responsiveness and friendliness

59. Growing Pains
• Losing responsiveness
• Forgetting or alienating your founding
community

60. Conclusion
• Marketing is not evil.
• You may already be doing marketing – you just
don’t think of it that way.
• The marketing appropriate for open source is
mostly stuff you’re comfortable with, and
probably also good at already.
• Ask for help.

61. Thanks
• Brendan Gregg
• Laura Ramsey

62. References & Further Reading
• https://www.wired.com/2017/06/diversity-open-
source-even-worse-tech-overall/
• http://opensourcesurvey.org/2017/
• Building Compassionate Communities in Tech, @izs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kLIonLrKdQ
• http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_u
sers/2005/05/users_dont_care.html
• http://www.writing-world.com/tech/tech4.shtml