openSUSE Summit-15 Years of Open Source: It's About the PeopleRussell Pavlicek
Open Source has flourished in the past decade and a half, but we need to make sure we don't lose our soul in the process. We must tend to the roots of the plant and not allow the corporate influence to compromise the liberation which Open Source provided to geeks.
Geek Empowerment - The Real Heart of Open SourceRussell Pavlicek
As delivered at Linuxfest Northwest 2014. Open Source has succeeded in so many ways. But is it in danger of losing its greatest single value: empowering geeks to be more than just obedient coders?
openSUSE Summit-15 Years of Open Source: It's About the PeopleRussell Pavlicek
Open Source has flourished in the past decade and a half, but we need to make sure we don't lose our soul in the process. We must tend to the roots of the plant and not allow the corporate influence to compromise the liberation which Open Source provided to geeks.
Geek Empowerment - The Real Heart of Open SourceRussell Pavlicek
As delivered at Linuxfest Northwest 2014. Open Source has succeeded in so many ways. But is it in danger of losing its greatest single value: empowering geeks to be more than just obedient coders?
Presentation mainly deals with Open Source and how Os projects work? Who does it? Why they do it? Why you should contribute to Open Source? Different ways of contribution.
How does open source software happen? What can we learn from it for cross-organizational collaboration? In this presentation, ifPeople cofounders Tirza Hollenhorst and Christopher Johnson talk about what open source is, the process by which it is created through a voluntary community, and a concrete process that can be used in any project (even non-software projects) to "social source" the project.
How to make your product awesome building a community aroundAlessio Fattorini
With my talk I’d like to explain what I learned building a community from scratch to around 1,5k users: how to handle open discussions, make the right choices, nurture ambassadors, be welcoming, inclusive and supportive. Ready-to-use, concrete advice on what works and what doesn’t.
Leadership From Below: What Software Developers do for Society and Why Others...Trond Arne Undheim
Developers have some core attitudes that are deeply shaping contemporary society. They foreshadow a society built on leadership from below, where leadership is less hierarchical. In this new, somewhat individualitic world, paradoxically, collaboration and standardization lay the foundation for the future.
LinuxCon2009: What does it mean being an Open Source project manager in Enter...Toshiharu Harada, Ph.D
In an enterprise, every project has a project manager regardless of the scale and of the theme. Open Source projects, which do not quite fit the traditional and formal enterprise way (rules, forms, licenses ...), cannot be exceptions. Though sharing the same name, the role of project manager is totally different for enterprise and Open Source projects.
The speaker is project manager of TOMOYO Linux, a security enhancement feature which was just merged in version 2.6.30. It was developed by one of the largest SI companies in Japan. The session reviews the project history and tries to summarize the differences between the enterprise and Open Source projects using TOMOYO Linux project as an example.
--
It took me more than three months to make this slides.
This is the second iteration of my Financing Freedom tutorial. I'm using lean publishing to deliver the highest quality of training possible. This revision contains some quantatative numbers supporting some of my assumptions.
Video and slides synchronized, mp3 and slide download available at URL http://bit.ly/1mMu3qG.
Emma Langman explores the usefulness of some of the Quality tools that have been around since the 50s for gathering requirements, tackling repeat problems, or innovating more efficiently as a team. Filmed at qconlondon.com.
Emma Langman is the Manager of HR and Performance at Kuwait Energy, and lives in Kuwait City. She is a Fellow of the RSA and was, until moving countries from the UK, a visiting fellow at the University of Bristol in both the Faculty of Engineering and the Graduate School of Education, as well as the Change Magician at her own company, Progression Partnership.
State of Drupal keynote, DrupalCon Los AngelesDries Buytaert
I talked about the history of the Drupal project and lessons learned, the sustainability and scalability of the Drupal community, the <a>big reverse of the web</a> and how it relates to Drupal.
Presentation mainly deals with Open Source and how Os projects work? Who does it? Why they do it? Why you should contribute to Open Source? Different ways of contribution.
How does open source software happen? What can we learn from it for cross-organizational collaboration? In this presentation, ifPeople cofounders Tirza Hollenhorst and Christopher Johnson talk about what open source is, the process by which it is created through a voluntary community, and a concrete process that can be used in any project (even non-software projects) to "social source" the project.
How to make your product awesome building a community aroundAlessio Fattorini
With my talk I’d like to explain what I learned building a community from scratch to around 1,5k users: how to handle open discussions, make the right choices, nurture ambassadors, be welcoming, inclusive and supportive. Ready-to-use, concrete advice on what works and what doesn’t.
Leadership From Below: What Software Developers do for Society and Why Others...Trond Arne Undheim
Developers have some core attitudes that are deeply shaping contemporary society. They foreshadow a society built on leadership from below, where leadership is less hierarchical. In this new, somewhat individualitic world, paradoxically, collaboration and standardization lay the foundation for the future.
LinuxCon2009: What does it mean being an Open Source project manager in Enter...Toshiharu Harada, Ph.D
In an enterprise, every project has a project manager regardless of the scale and of the theme. Open Source projects, which do not quite fit the traditional and formal enterprise way (rules, forms, licenses ...), cannot be exceptions. Though sharing the same name, the role of project manager is totally different for enterprise and Open Source projects.
The speaker is project manager of TOMOYO Linux, a security enhancement feature which was just merged in version 2.6.30. It was developed by one of the largest SI companies in Japan. The session reviews the project history and tries to summarize the differences between the enterprise and Open Source projects using TOMOYO Linux project as an example.
--
It took me more than three months to make this slides.
This is the second iteration of my Financing Freedom tutorial. I'm using lean publishing to deliver the highest quality of training possible. This revision contains some quantatative numbers supporting some of my assumptions.
Video and slides synchronized, mp3 and slide download available at URL http://bit.ly/1mMu3qG.
Emma Langman explores the usefulness of some of the Quality tools that have been around since the 50s for gathering requirements, tackling repeat problems, or innovating more efficiently as a team. Filmed at qconlondon.com.
Emma Langman is the Manager of HR and Performance at Kuwait Energy, and lives in Kuwait City. She is a Fellow of the RSA and was, until moving countries from the UK, a visiting fellow at the University of Bristol in both the Faculty of Engineering and the Graduate School of Education, as well as the Change Magician at her own company, Progression Partnership.
State of Drupal keynote, DrupalCon Los AngelesDries Buytaert
I talked about the history of the Drupal project and lessons learned, the sustainability and scalability of the Drupal community, the <a>big reverse of the web</a> and how it relates to Drupal.
OSAC16: Unikernel-powered Transient Microservices: Changing the Face of Softw...Russell Pavlicek
In most current microservice-based architectures, the machine images powering the microservice are quite traditional: a full software stack from operating system to application, which takes significant resources to host and plenty of time to start and stop. As a result, most current microservice workloads are persistent, having to start before they are needed and sitting idle when there’s no work to do. This wastes precious resources and slows the application’s ability to scale out as workloads require.
The arrival of lightweight technologies like Docker and containers have opened the door to lighter workloads in the microservice arena, but the advent of unikernels might be a game changer. These ultralight, highly secure workloads combine the entire software stack—from operating system functions to application—into a single, tiny package that runs directly on a hypervisor. Start times for many unikernel-based VMs can be measured in milliseconds, raising the question: why waste time and resources with persistent microservices? Why not consider transient microservices, which appear when there is something to do and disappear immediately thereafter?
While the use of transient microservices could free up much computing power, it will also change the architecture and orchestration of software solutions. The concept of services that may have a lifetime measured in seconds—or less—does not currently exist in popular cloud-based systems.
The Xen Project has been producing open source virtualization technologies for the past 10 years. It currently enables some of the largest clouds in the industry. However, decisions made on both the community and business fronts a few years back nearly caused the Xen Project to collapse on itself. Through a series of corrective actions, Xen is once again moving forward with major advances and a growing community. We will discuss some of the lessons learned from this experience, including lessons from both community and business vantage points. We will also focus on maintaining a healthy relationship between a community and a business entity as a means of keeping a project vibrant.
This presentation is delivered as part of the Faculty training program at Kristu Jayanthi College, Bangalore. The intent was to help students build competency and contribute to open source projects. Also which will eventually help them to build professional career in open source connected domains.
This event was organized by the SODA Foundation and lots of fabulous speakers delivered the series. Thank you SODA!!!!
PuppetConf 2016: Successful Puppet Implementation in Large Organizations – Ja...Puppet
Here are the slides from James Sweeny's PuppetConf 2016 presentation called Successful Puppet Implementation in Large Organizations. Watch the videos at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV86BgbREluVjwwt-9UL8u2Uy8xnzpIqa
Building Better FLOSS Community Relationships @ FBDavide Cavalca
This talk will cover the work Facebook has done to become more involved with various upstream open source communities. We will start with why we believe it's important for companies to build strong relationships with the communities around the software they use - particularly in infrastructure. Next we will look at the steps we took to become better community citizens and finally we will discuss some case studies.
Specifics covered will include various projects we've contributed to, technical work such as back-porting various OS components from Rawhide to CentOS 7, benefits we've received and lessons learned.
Free Libre Open Source Software - Business Aspects of Software IndustryFrederik Questier
F. Questier, Free Libre Open Source Software - Guest Lecture for the course Business Aspects of Software Industry of Prof. M. Goldchstein, with students from management science and computer science, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (19/05/11)
Building Better FLOSS Community Relationships @ FBDavide Cavalca
This talk will cover the work Facebook has done to become more involved with various upstream open source communities. We will start with why we believe it's important for companies to build strong relationships with the communities around the software they use - particularly in infrastructure. Next we will look at the steps we took to become better community citizens and finally we will discuss some case studies.
Specifics covered will include various projects we've contributed to, technical work such as back-porting various OS components from Rawhide to CentOS 7, benefits we've received and lessons learned.
Free Libre Open Source Software - Business aspects of software industryFrederik Questier
F. Questier, Free Libre Open Source Software - Guest Lecture for the course Business Aspects of Software Industry of Prof. M. Goldchstein and Prof. T. Crispeels, with students from management science, computer science and civil engineering, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (17/04/13)
Many developers have blinders when considering their technologies. We tend to fade out the sometimes hard-to-learn skills and hurdles in dealing with the system, and sometimes look contemptuously at other technologies that repeat the same mistakes that our community has already made.
We rant about the hurdles we have with our own system, but forgets about the many smart elements that comes for free.
This presentation is meant to be a self-critical analysis of our "Plone" system and the community behind it, and to provide a discussion stimulus for the future of Plone.
Digital Odyssey 2014 : Code, the Most Important Language in the World
Friday June 6th, 2014
9:00 am - 5:00 pm
Oakham House, Ryerson University
55 Gould St
Toronto, ON M5B 1E9
Open Source software projects and communities
Panel Speakers: Randy Metcalfe, Kirsta Stapelfeldt,
Lessons Learned From Scaling An Open Source Community By 10,000%Angela Byron
Drupal—an open source CMS—has grown from a small student hobby project to an enterprise-grade digital experience platform running ~3% of the Internet. This talk will explore the many lessons learned (most of them the hard way ;)) in navigating an international open source developer community through various scalability challenges.
Topics covered will include:
* Contributor On-Boarding: Some clever and participatory ways to help new folks bootstrap quickly and feel included
* Community Health: How to account for—and encourage—contributors stepping away? How to develop new leadership to take their place?
* Project Sustainability: How to incentivize commercial sponsorship of open source contributions without selling your soul
* Governance: What pain points emerge as you scale, what strategies help solve them, and how to “right size” your solutions at the right time?
* When Sh*t Hits The Fan: How do you handle a project fork? What if you need to remove a high profile contributor? Been there, done that; let my trauma be your guide. ;)
* Community Bootstrapping: What if you’re *not* a project with 100K+ contributors and 2M+ users? How do you build your first 100 / 1,000 / 100K?
Similar to Lessons Learned from Xen [LFNW 2013] (20)
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
Removing Uninteresting Bytes in Software FuzzingAftab Hussain
Imagine a world where software fuzzing, the process of mutating bytes in test seeds to uncover hidden and erroneous program behaviors, becomes faster and more effective. A lot depends on the initial seeds, which can significantly dictate the trajectory of a fuzzing campaign, particularly in terms of how long it takes to uncover interesting behaviour in your code. We introduce DIAR, a technique designed to speedup fuzzing campaigns by pinpointing and eliminating those uninteresting bytes in the seeds. Picture this: instead of wasting valuable resources on meaningless mutations in large, bloated seeds, DIAR removes the unnecessary bytes, streamlining the entire process.
In this work, we equipped AFL, a popular fuzzer, with DIAR and examined two critical Linux libraries -- Libxml's xmllint, a tool for parsing xml documents, and Binutil's readelf, an essential debugging and security analysis command-line tool used to display detailed information about ELF (Executable and Linkable Format). Our preliminary results show that AFL+DIAR does not only discover new paths more quickly but also achieves higher coverage overall. This work thus showcases how starting with lean and optimized seeds can lead to faster, more comprehensive fuzzing campaigns -- and DIAR helps you find such seeds.
- These are slides of the talk given at IEEE International Conference on Software Testing Verification and Validation Workshop, ICSTW 2022.
Dr. Sean Tan, Head of Data Science, Changi Airport Group
Discover how Changi Airport Group (CAG) leverages graph technologies and generative AI to revolutionize their search capabilities. This session delves into the unique search needs of CAG’s diverse passengers and customers, showcasing how graph data structures enhance the accuracy and relevance of AI-generated search results, mitigating the risk of “hallucinations” and improving the overall customer journey.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
SAP Sapphire 2024 - ASUG301 building better apps with SAP Fiori.pdfPeter Spielvogel
Building better applications for business users with SAP Fiori.
• What is SAP Fiori and why it matters to you
• How a better user experience drives measurable business benefits
• How to get started with SAP Fiori today
• How SAP Fiori elements accelerates application development
• How SAP Build Code includes SAP Fiori tools and other generative artificial intelligence capabilities
• How SAP Fiori paves the way for using AI in SAP apps
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 5DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 5. In this session, we will cover CI/CD with devops.
Topics covered:
CI/CD with in UiPath
End-to-end overview of CI/CD pipeline with Azure devops
Speaker:
Lyndsey Byblow, Test Suite Sales Engineer @ UiPath, Inc.
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
A tale of scale & speed: How the US Navy is enabling software delivery from l...sonjaschweigert1
Rapid and secure feature delivery is a goal across every application team and every branch of the DoD. The Navy’s DevSecOps platform, Party Barge, has achieved:
- Reduction in onboarding time from 5 weeks to 1 day
- Improved developer experience and productivity through actionable findings and reduction of false positives
- Maintenance of superior security standards and inherent policy enforcement with Authorization to Operate (ATO)
Development teams can ship efficiently and ensure applications are cyber ready for Navy Authorizing Officials (AOs). In this webinar, Sigma Defense and Anchore will give attendees a look behind the scenes and demo secure pipeline automation and security artifacts that speed up application ATO and time to production.
We will cover:
- How to remove silos in DevSecOps
- How to build efficient development pipeline roles and component templates
- How to deliver security artifacts that matter for ATO’s (SBOMs, vulnerability reports, and policy evidence)
- How to streamline operations with automated policy checks on container images
Threats to mobile devices are more prevalent and increasing in scope and complexity. Users of mobile devices desire to take full advantage of the features
available on those devices, but many of the features provide convenience and capability but sacrifice security. This best practices guide outlines steps the users can take to better protect personal devices and information.
Unlocking Productivity: Leveraging the Potential of Copilot in Microsoft 365, a presentation by Christoforos Vlachos, Senior Solutions Manager – Modern Workplace, Uni Systems
Essentials of Automations: The Art of Triggers and Actions in FMESafe Software
In this second installment of our Essentials of Automations webinar series, we’ll explore the landscape of triggers and actions, guiding you through the nuances of authoring and adapting workspaces for seamless automations. Gain an understanding of the full spectrum of triggers and actions available in FME, empowering you to enhance your workspaces for efficient automation.
We’ll kick things off by showcasing the most commonly used event-based triggers, introducing you to various automation workflows like manual triggers, schedules, directory watchers, and more. Plus, see how these elements play out in real scenarios.
Whether you’re tweaking your current setup or building from the ground up, this session will arm you with the tools and insights needed to transform your FME usage into a powerhouse of productivity. Join us to discover effective strategies that simplify complex processes, enhancing your productivity and transforming your data management practices with FME. Let’s turn complexity into clarity and make your workspaces work wonders!
Observability Concepts EVERY Developer Should Know -- DeveloperWeek Europe.pdfPaige Cruz
Monitoring and observability aren’t traditionally found in software curriculums and many of us cobble this knowledge together from whatever vendor or ecosystem we were first introduced to and whatever is a part of your current company’s observability stack.
While the dev and ops silo continues to crumble….many organizations still relegate monitoring & observability as the purview of ops, infra and SRE teams. This is a mistake - achieving a highly observable system requires collaboration up and down the stack.
I, a former op, would like to extend an invitation to all application developers to join the observability party will share these foundational concepts to build on:
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...
Lessons Learned from Xen [LFNW 2013]
1. How to (Almost) Kill a Successful Project and Bring It
Back to Life Again:
Lessons Learned from the Xen Project
Russell Pavlicek
Xen Project Evangelist
Citrix Systems
Russell.Pavlicek@xen.org
2. So Who is the Old, Fat Geek Up Front?
A guy with a lot of experience and a really
big mouth
3. About the Speaker...
● Linux user since 1995; Linux desktop since 1997
● Linux advocate before I ever saw the software
● Early advocate in DEC, Compaq
● Former columnist for Infoworld, Processor
● Former panelist on The Linux Show
● Wrote book, Embracing Insanity: Open Source Software Development
● Speaker at 40+ conferences
● Currently Xen Project Evangelist employed by Citrix
4. About This Talk
● We will spend a couple minutes reviewing the
project
● We will spend a few minutes considering its history
● But we will spend the bulk of the time considering
lessons to take away
● We are not here for the project's history; we are here
for your future
5. What is the Xen Project?
● The premier Open Source Hypervisor
● Powering some of the biggest Clouds in the industry
(Amazon, Rackspace, Terremark)
● Celebrating its 10th Anniversary
● Now a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project
– Sponsoring organizations include: Google, AMD, Intel,
Samsung, Cisco, Oracle, Amazon, Verizon and more
6. What Does the Xen Project Produce?
● The Xen Hypervisor, including ARM servers
– Type 1 (Bare Metal)
● Xen Cloud Platform & XAPI
– Cloud readiness out of the box
● Other Projects
– Mirage
– ARM Hypervisor for mobile devices
7. The Xen Project Story (30 second
version)
● It was the first industrial-strength Open Source
Hypervisor
● It enjoyed a very high rate of adoption
● It employed excellent technology
● It had a FOSS-friendly corporation behind it
● And, yet, 2 years ago, it ran the risk of being
abandoned by the FOSS community before its 10th
birthday
8. How Did This Happen?
● The project, though viable, developed an inward
focus
– Reach out to the rest of the Open Source community was
limited
– Reach out to its users was minimal
– Code development continued, but the community became
insulated and stagnated
– No one stepped up to contradict the rumor that Xen was
dying technology, overcome by competitors
9. How Did This Happen? (continued)
● The project forgot the importance of working with
its ecosystem
– Upstream projects (Linux, QEMU) were branched rather
than engaged with patches
– The project decided that others in the ecosystem (i.e., the
distributions) would have to carry the burden of
maintaining and supporting those differences
– This went on too long, and the ecosystem got fed up
10. How Did This Happen? (continued)
● The corporation backing it (XenSource) was sold to
a company with a long closed source software
history (Citrix)
● The new corporation was interested in the
technology, but had no particular interest in the
project itself
11. Why Did This Happen?
● It was not about malice
● It was not about fear
● It was about disconnection
– The project became disconnected from the FOSS
community
– The project became disconnected from the users
– The new company became disconnected from the needs
of the project, because, in part, the project never really
explained what it needed from the company
12. About Two Years Ago: Battling for a
Future
● The prognosis was not good
● Xen Hypervisor had been overtaken by a
commercial offering in IT mindshare
● Xen Project had been overshadowed by another
Open Source Hypervisor in the community
● Distributions stopped facilitating Xen
● The FOSS Community began to forget Xen
13. A Conscious Reversal in Direction
● About 2 years ago, a new direction was plotted
● Citrix decided it wanted to understand FOSS and
reinvigorate the Xen community
● The company began to hire FOSS-savvy people to
reconnect with the community and with users
● Brought about efforts to birth Apache CloudStack,
OpenDaylight, and to move the Xen Project under
the Linux Foundation
14. Reality Two Years Ago: Xen Who?
● Common themes heard at FOSS events:
– What is Xen?
– Xen is dead, right?
– Isn't Xen closed source?
– No one uses Xen anymore
15. Reality Today: Xen is Back!
● Linux kernel 3.0 contains all that Xen needs to exist
by default
● Most Linux distributions are Xen-enabled
– CentOS has a project to give RHEL6 users a Xen option
● Xen Project now part of Linux Foundation
● Launch of a new user-friendlier website
(XenProject.org)
17. Lesson 1
● It is possible to die while you are winning
– Being first is not enough
– Great technology is not enough
– Having a FOSS-friendly corporation behind you is not
enough
● A project must stay vibrant as an Open Source
organism or it will perish
18. Lesson 2
● Disconnection from users can make you a “Dead
Project Walking”
– You can be adding functionality, issuing new releases,
and still be dying
– The connection between project and users is essential
– Focusing on software alone is not enough
● If you are not interacting with your users, you are at
serious risk
19. Lesson 2 (continued)
● Connecting with your developers != connecting with
your users
– You need information sources for both users and
developers
– If users have to dig through technical websites, wikis,
etc. to answer simple questions, you are in trouble
– Even Linux kernel development – arguably one of the
most insular projects – cannot thrive in a vacuum
20. Lesson 3
● Never ignore your project's Open Source root
structure
– Cut flowers are beautiful – until they die
– Living plants need their roots
– FOSS community is the root structure, and it must spread
wide
– The project team cannot stand alone
● Pay attention to your partners in FOSS: libraries,
kernel, packaging
21. Lesson 4
● Never ignore your support structure
– Xen needed cooperation from Distributions to be
properly supported
– The relationship with the distributions was allowed to
stagnate; it was not continuously cultivated
– When one distribution invested in another Open Source
virtualization solution, other distributions were swayed
● Your distribution route can be critical to success
22. Lesson 5
● Having corporate backing is not enough
– The corporation has its own set of goals, and they rarely
align exactly with the project's goals
– When the project and the company don't mesh, friction
can occur
– This isn’t about good versus evil; business and projects
are just two separate animals with different needs
23. Lesson 6
● Having a FOSS company backing you is no
guarantee
– Even FOSS-centric companies can be sold
– Sometimes they are sold to other FOSS companies (e.g.,
JBoss, Gluster)
– Sometimes they are sold to closed source companies
(e.g., MySQL, Xen, Cassatt)
● If a project won’t survive without FOSS company
backing, consider options (e.g., Linux Foundation)
24. Lesson 7
● In FOSS, there is no such thing as autopilot
– Intent is critical
– If you are not planning to succeed, you are planning to
fail
– Great software is not enough; you can have the best
technical solution, but if a “big dog” starts throwing its
weight around, you need to be able to respond
– If you're not looking at your whole ecosystem, you are
inviting failure
25. Lesson 8
● If it ain't growing, it's dying
– If your project team is seeing no new blood over time, be
concerned
– Open Source organisms must move and grow
– New folks are needed from time to time to add new ideas
and keep focus on what users need
26. Lesson 9
● Know where your project could fit in the world and
make a plan to get there
– Competition means you probably won't be best fit for
every situation
– It may not be possible to have every feature your
competitors have (especially if they have much corporate
backing)
– Figure out who your users are, what they need, and what
you need for them to use your code
27. Lesson 10
● Competition Increases Innovation
– Lack of competition can cause stagnation (consider Unix
CDE)
– Competing technologies keep the ball moving forward
continuously
– Xen's competition with KVM and VMware insured that
new virtualization capabilities would keep flowing
– A competing project has to stay on top of its game or it
won't make it
28. Lesson 11
● Major new features can keep your mindshare alive
in the community
– Large advances (e.g., ARM and Mirage) generate
attention from the FOSS ecosystem and the userbase
– If you aren’t making headway, your root and support
structures may stop working to give you what you need
– Periodic advances keeps the project growing
29. Lesson 12
● Sometimes, perception really is reality
– You can have the best code in the world, but if no one
cares, it’s useless
– If the rumor arises that you are dying, outmoded, or
outdone by some other project, you must fight that
perception
– The unchallenged lie will become fact for many people
30. Lesson 12 (continued)
● In contrast, KVM managed perceptions well
– It could have looked like a purely Red Hat/IBM business
play when Red Hat purchased Qumranet
– The relationship between Red Hat and the KVM project
was well-defined & appropriate; no disconnect occurred
– FOSS community embraced KVM project
– Clearly, Red Hat and IBM are still focusing major
business initiatives on KVM, but the community accepts
that because it was done correctly
31. Crash Course in Perception
Management
● Go to local FOSS events
– Submit talks
● Get used to rejection and learn from it
● Talk to the track chairmam
– “I don’t like speaking” – get over it; calculus was
way harder than this
– Get an ORG booth for cheap
● Stock it with flyers, CDs, business cards,
stickers
● Shoot your mouth off
– Blogs
– A usable website
– Podcasts (TLLTS)
– Social Media
● Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn
● More mouthing off
– YouTube demos and tutorials
– Write for Linux.com Lxer, LWN.net
● Get a “kick-*aas” mascot!
– But our buddy Xen Fu is taken!
● Shout out and live, or shut up and die!
– Passion is your ally
– Let it leak over everyone
– Don’t imitate the suits; do what fits you
32. Lesson 13
● There's a new reality for FOSS projects: the
corporate connection
– Projects used to be primarily volunteers working nights
and weekends
– Today, corporations play a big role in development
● You need to have a good grip on what your
corporate sponsors want from you, and what you
need from them; disconnection can be fatal
33. Lesson 13 (continued)
● Manage the relationship between business and
project
– Prevent the loss of the project’s identity
– If the project appears “owned” by a business, the FOSS
community might become suspicious and back away
– In this case, perception is as dangerous as reality
– If you forget what the project is, every else will too
– Project ecosystem will wither away; only the business
remains
34. Lesson 13 (continued)
● Establish a symbiotic relationship
– Business provides user feedback, resources
– Project provides overall focus, goal, direction, labor
– Both sides need to color in the lines
– Otherwise, you get “fake Open Source:” the code is
open, but there is no community, no support, no
ecosystem
35. Final Thoughts
● Make sure your project addresses its entire
ecosystem:
– Is the code good?
– Are you reaching out to your users?
– Is your development community active, engaged, and
growing?
– Are reaching out to the FOSS community?
– Have you insured you have proper support (libraries,
distros, kernels, etc.)?
36. Final Thoughts (continued)
● If you are in a relationship with a corporation, is that
relationship healthy?
– Do you have freedom to do what you need to do?
– Are you getting user feedback to seed new growth in the
project?
– Is your project's identity getting lost in the corporate
identity? (if so, consider a foundation route)
● Whatever else, don't give up!