I gave this presentation at the Creative Commons Seoul Salon event on August 27, 2012. http://www.cckorea.org/xe/?document_srl=432289

1. 우샤히디 & 오픈 소스
@brianherbert
Director of Crowdmap
CC Salon in Seoul
August 2012

2. Kenya Rocks
• Kenya is an example of peace and stability in
East Africa.
• Kenyans have serious mobile skills. Higher
quality cell service than the US.
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/kenya/

3. Kenya Rocks
• Kenya is an example of peace and stability in
East Africa.
• Kenyans have serious mobile skills. Higher
quality cell service than the US.
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/kenya/

4. Simultaneous
Talking
AND
Texting

5. December 2007
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rnw/

6. January 2008
(c)Yasuyoshi Chiba

7. January 2008
• January 3 Idea for Ushahidi
• January 5 Team Formed
• January 6 Prototyped
• January 7 Launched

9. Creating a New Narrative Video
http://vimeo.com/17863608

10. Ushahidi Products
}
• Ushahidi Platform
• SwiftRiver Platform
• Crowdmap

11. iHub Nairobi

12. How did we go from a single
map to managing multiple open
source projects and a
technology hub in Nairobi?

13. Ushahidi Founders
Three Bloggers
One Developer
Juliana Rotich
David Kobia
Erik Hersman Ory Okolloh

14. Open Source Experience
Three Bloggers
One Developer
?
? Juliana Rotich
David Kobia
? ?
Erik Hersman Ory Okolloh

15. Open Source Experience
Three Bloggers
One Developer
0
0 Juliana Rotich
David Kobia
0 0
Erik Hersman Ory Okolloh

16. Driven by Passion
• Got to work and didn’t mess around.
• Formed the foundation of Ushahidi culture.
• Made many mistakes.
reo ka y!
is ta ke sa
M

17. One Mistake

18. ASP.net, ehhh...
• Not a popular language in open source.
• Back then and today, it’s not even in the top 10.
JavaScript
Ruby
Python
Shell
Java
PHP
C
C++
Perl
Objective-C
Top 10 Languages on GitHub
https://github.com/languages

19. The Stack
• We chose a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache,
MySQL, PHP) for universal acceptance.
• Difficult to switch once the decision has
been made.
• Projects risk alienating community when
changing language preference.

20. Version Control
• Most important technology decision.
• Only two serious options:
• SVN - Centralized
• Git - Decentralized
• Distributed, decentralized version control
is good for open source.

21. Communication
• Ushahidi utilizes every channel of
communication possible.
• 10 Forums
• 3 Mailing Lists
• 1 Support Email
• 6 Chatrooms (Skype, IRC)
• 4 Issue Trackers
• TOO MANY!

22. Project Teams
All-Powerful Project Manager
Slave Programmers

23. Project Teams
Happy Programmers!

24. Development Workflow
Code hosted on GitHub
github.com/ushahidi

25. Development Workflow
• Git informs how we manage code as a
team and a community of volunteers.
• Developers fork and make pull
requests.
• Trusted developers push directly to the
repository.
• Become trusted by DOING good work.

26. Just Do It Already!
Want respect in an open source community?
• Fork a repository.
• Write some code. PRO TIP
Do not ask
• Submit a pull request. permission.
• Implement feedback.
• Celebrate.
• Do it again.

27. Do-ocracy
• Ushahidi rewards active volunteers.
• Rarely interview new employees, simply
hire the volunteers who are doing work.
• I was hired via email. Committing code
and active participation was all it took.

28. What do we need?
• Testers
• Bug Killers
• Translators
• Huge thank you to Jungkwan Kim ;)

29. Transifex.com
uchaguzi.co.ke

30. Get To Work!
Git can be scary. Be patient!
help.github.com
Hack our code. Fork us!
github.com/ushahidi/Ushahidi_Web
github.com/ushahidi/SwiftRiver
.... or any of our 73 repos.
Don’t listen to me.
Start your own project!