Collaboration in open source - how does it really work? Practical examples from MariaDB development Presentation by Otto Kekäläinen at Mindtrek Openmind 2015, Tampere, Finland.

1. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation1
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Collaboration in open source -
how does it really work?
Practical examples from
MariaDB development
Otto Kekäläinen
22.9.2015
MindTrek OpenMind

2. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation2
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Collaboration at mariadb.org
Corporate supporters include
Booking.com, Automattic,
Odin/Parallels, Visma,
Verkkokauppa.com..

3. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation3
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Towards the best solution in the world?
Open source software development is exiting!

4. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation4
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The open source definition
● Freedom to use
● Freedom to study
● Freedom to improve
● Freedom to redistribute
Freedoms, not obligations

5. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation5
Collaboration
Give and get

6. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation6
Open source vs. democracy
The strategy
does not guarantee
that the operation is
successfull

7. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation7
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All contributions are valuable
● code
● testing
● translations
● documentation
● graphics, design
● packaging and distribution
● marketing, advocacy
● good bug report, feedback, ideas

8. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation8
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Who are the contributors?
● codership.com
● freesa.org
● galeracluster.com
● gmail.com
● google.com
● hotmail.com
● iki.fi
● mariadb.com
● mariadb.org
git log | grep Author
● mnogosearch.org
● openquery.com
● oracle.com
● primebase.org
● skysql.com
● suse.com
● tokutek.com
● twitter.com
● xiphis.org
● yahoo.com

9. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation9
Reasons to contribute
Scratch your own itch!

10. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation10
Reasons to contribute

11. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation11
Reasons to contribute

12. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation12
Reasons to contribute

13. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation13
Reasons to contribute

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Cost vs benefit in contributions
Keep it simple
(but not too simple)

15. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation15

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Facilitate collaboration, be inclusive
● Publish code in real time, not just at release time
● Discuss and plan on public mailing list
● Chat in the public (e.g. IRC online, meetings offline)
● Public bug tracker, transparent progress and
priorities
● Respond quickly to pull requests on Github

17. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation17
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Be inclusive

18. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation18
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Be inclusive

19. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation19
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Be inclusive

20. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation20
Collaboration problems?
Support requests and random ideas
vs
Real contributions and talent

21. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation21
Collaboration problems?
Automatic testing to help review contributions and focus human time on best contributions

22. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation22
Collaboration opportunities?
”Given enough eyeballs are
bugs are shallow” – Linus law

23. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation23
How it feels? Everybody smiles!

24. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation24
You can do it too!
Use
Study
Improve
Share

25. © 2015 MariaDB Foundation25
Thanks!
mariadb.org
@ottokekalainen
otto@mariadb.org