The document discusses how the definition of a healthy open source project has evolved over time at the Eclipse Foundation from 2001 to 2021. It began with ensuring software works properly but now includes priorities like security, sustainability, supply chain management, and building an inclusive community. The Eclipse Foundation has played a key role in these changes by focusing on adopters, contributors, social coding practices, and addressing modern issues like reproducible builds and carbon neutral development.

1. Open Source Health:
A Practitioners Guide
Mike Milinkovich, Eclipse Foundation
@mmilinkov
Or how the quest for open source health has impacted the
Eclipse Foundation, its projects, and its community
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“Never let the
facts get in the
way of a good
story.”

3. Software ate the world...
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...then open source
gobbled up software

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Be Careful What You Wish For....
With great power
comes great
responsibility

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c. 2002: Getting software to work (better)

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Testing
▪ innovate with confidence
▪ tests run after each build
▪ test kinds
▪correctness tests
▪ assert correct behavior
▪performance tests
▪ assert no performance regressions
▪ based on a database of previous
test run measurements
▪resource tests, leak tests
▪ assert no resource consumption
regressions
Defect
s
Testing
Kent Beck – JUnit handbook

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Unit Test Report

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Performance Test Report

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c. 2005: Is anyone using our stuff?

11. Early Days
5 May 2010 Copyright (c) 2010, Eclipse Foundation, Inc. Made available under the Eclipse Public License 1.0 11
Welcome to eclipse.org
Eclipse is a kind of universal tool platform -
an open extensible IDE for anything and
nothing in particular.

12. Eclipse: A Leading Community
5 May 2010 Copyright (c) 2010, Eclipse Foundation, Inc. Made available under the Eclipse Public License 1.0 12

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Impacting a Market
13

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Impacting a Market
14

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c. 2005: Focus on Adopters

16. IP Policy
5 May 2010 Copyright (c) 2010, Eclipse Foundation, Inc. Made available under the Eclipse Public License 1.0 16

17. Predictability
13-Apr-2016 17
Copyright (c) 2015, Eclipse Foundation, Inc. Made available under CC-BY-SA 4.0

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How is the Development Done?
milestones
first
API
first
end
game
retrospectives
always have
a client
built to
last
continuous
integration
community
involvement
new &
noteworthy
early incremental
planning
continuous
testing
consume your
own output
component
centric
drive with
open eyes
validate
reduce
stress
learn
enable
attract
to latest
transparency
validate
update
dynamic
teams
show progress
enable
explore
validate

19. Eclipse C/C++ Development Tools

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c. 2006: Supporting an ecosystem

21. Copyright © 2008 Eclipse Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Made available under the Eclipse Public License 1.0
Platform == Architecture of Participation
“what really distinguishes open source is not just source, but an
"architecture of participation" ….”
Tim O’Reilly
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3017?wlg=yes
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sentience/261922677/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ckindel/135426249/

22. Copyright © 2008 Eclipse Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Made available under the Eclipse Public License 1.0
The Eclipse Experience –
Architecture of Participation
Run-time
Plug-ins
Platform
New Plug-ins
are First Class
Citizens –
same footing
for everyone
Open API and
commercially
friendly licensing –
Low barriers to
Entry
Ease of Integration
and Extensibility
Spurs Innovation
Competition can take
place on implementations
– users decide winners
Successful Ecosystems are built on this model!

23. Eclipse Marketplace
● Catalog over 1000+
solutions
● Make it easy to find
Eclipse-based
products
● Anyone may list their
Eclipse product

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c. 2007: Focus on Contributors

25. Contributions Abound
5 May 2010 Copyright (c) 2010, Eclipse Foundation, Inc. Made available under the Eclipse Public License 1.0 25

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Eclipse Orion

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Eclipse IDE Platform

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Companies by Commits in 2021Q1

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c. 2007: Basic Security

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c. 2010: The emergence of Social Coding
aka The death of the self-hosted foundation forge

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The impact of GitHub

32. Proposal
26-Mar-2013 Copyright (c) 2013, Eclipse Foundation, Inc. Made available under the Eclipse Public License 1.0 32
Contributions
& Patches
Git
Builds
Signing
Release &
Download
IPzilla & PMI
Contributions
& Patches
SCM
Bugzilla & Gerrit
Git clone of
main SCM
repos
Pull requests
Github

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c. 2013: Social agency

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Code of Conduct

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c. 2014: Long Term Sustainability

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Eclipse BIRT

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c. 2017: Securing FLOSS

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c. 2021: Supply Chain Security

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Reproducible Builds, Vulnerability
Scanning

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c. 2021: Carbon Neutral Coding

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The ever-growing and evolving
definition of “Health”
Early days… software that works
2004… Is anyone using our stuff?
2005… Focus on adopters
2006… Supporting an ecosystem
2007… Focus on contributors and contributor diversity (organization)
2007… Basic security
2010… Social coding a.k.a. the death of the forge
2013… Social agency, code of conduct, diversity initiatives
2014... Long term Sustainability (Heartbleed 2014)
2017… Security v2 - CVE issuing authority, security policy
2021… Supply Chain Security and Management
OpenChain, SPDX, reproducible builds, US Executive Order, Google blog post
2021 “Green” open source

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Summary
● 2001 definition of a healthy open source project:
○ It works and it solves a business or technical problem
● 2021 definition of a healthy open source project:
○ Working, secure, and carbon-neutral code, delivered on an environmentally friendly,
sustainable, predictable, repeatable, and supply-chain secure basis with millions of users and
thousands of GitHub stars, along with a plethora of adopters and a large, dynamic ecosystem
all delivered by a diverse and welcoming community governed in an open and transparent
manner with a commitment to equity and social justice.

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Told you so...
With great power
comes great
responsibility

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Conclusions
● The amount of resources required to have a “healthy open source project”
has increased dramatically
○ Many of the tasks necessary for health fall outside the interests of most developers
● The success of open source is forcing its industrialization and
professionalization
● The ever-growing definitions of “open source software health” may be
unsustainable
○ At a minimum, they are changing the dynamics of how open source is created
● The ability of the “hero programmer” or small teams to significantly impact the
industry has been reduced
○ Not necessarily a bad thing… open source has always been a team sport

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Thoughts on the Future
● Successful, impactful, and healthy open source projects:
○ Require the (increasing) support of a foundation; or
○ Require the support of a well-funded startup; or
○ Both
● GitHub is trying
○ Actions, security scans, licensing options, code of conduct templates

47. Thank you!
Questions?