Open Source Metrics to Inform Corporate Strategy

Samsung Open Source Group 1
Open Source Metrics to Inform
Corporate Strategy
Ben Lloyd Pearson
Manager of Strategy and Operations
Samsung Open Source Group
benp@osg.samsung.com

Who am I?
● IT generalist who specializes in open source
methodology.
● I manage operations and strategy for a small
team of open source engineers at Samsung.
● Two Directives...
● Provide internal guidance
on use and development of
open source software
● Serve as Samsung's
representatives in external
open source communities

Why am I Using GrimoireLab?
● Samsung relies on open source software for
numerous products.
● Investing time and money into software always
requires a strategic evaluation.
● It's not enough to evaluate a project solely on its
technical merits, the community also has an impact on
the strategic value of OSS.
● Public information about OSS communities allows for
a much deeper evaluation than proprietary software.

...A Few Caveats
● Quantitative metrics only paint part of the
picture, qualitative analysis is always required
● Many metrics require resources to be utilized in
a specific way, this can't always be relied on in
an open source community
– e.g. Someone might submit a pull request using
their personal email while performing work for a
company.

Three Major Concerns...
● Community Strength
● Internal Strength
● External Project Influences

Duel of the Display Servers

Community Strength

Community Strength
● Project Velocity – How fast is the project
producing new code?
● Contributor Health – How successful are
contributors at getting involved?
● Developer Ecosystem – How diverse and
skilled are the developers in the community?

Community Strength
Project Velocity

Project Velocity
Commits
Per Month
YoY Change

Project Velocity
And Many
More...

Community Strength
Contributor Health

Growth of Contributor Community
New Contributors
Per Month
Cumulative
Contributors

Contributor Base
Total Contributors
Per Month
YoY Change

Time to Upstream
Time to Commit
All Contributors
Time to Commit
New Contributors
Average
Median

Contributor Growth vs. Inactivity
Inactivity Newest Contributors

Contributor Health – Wish List
● Evaluate cross-pollination between mailing lists,
review platforms, and git contributions
● Contributor churn rate

Community Strength
Developer Ecosystem

Developer Ecosystem

Developer Ecosystem
Individual Organization

Developer Ecosystem

Developer Ecosystem - Wishlist

Community Strength
● Is the community mature enough to support the
products & services we're building?
● If the project needs to mature more, how long
will this take?
● Is the developer base improving or weakening?
● If we need to hire developers, are there enough
in the community at the level of expertise and
geographic location we need?

Internal Strength

Ability to Get Code Upstream

Ability to Get Code Upstream
Time to Commit

Internal Team Performance
OSG
Other
Samsung
Teams

Internal Team Performance

Gauge Internal Expertise
● What teams have the most success at getting
code upstream? What teams are struggling?
● How does our performance compare to the
open source community?
● Who are our best internal experts?
● Who do we have that can act as a key mentor
internally?

External Influences

Leading Organizations
Percent of Total Cumulative

Leading Organizations

Organization Effort
Individual
Contributors
Commits
By
Company

Committer Influence
Individual
Committers
Individual
Committers
Commits
By
Organization

Committer Influence
Individual
Committers
Commits
By
Company

Company Focus Areas
Individual Repositories

Organizational Support
● What companies are involved in a project, and
what technology domains are they focused on?
● Are any companies changing their focus?
● Who sponsors the most important developers
and maintainers/committers?
● Are there any potential conflicts of interest
between our company and the companies that
sponsor the most committers?

One Final Note

Goals for the Future

Improve Corporate Operations
● Improve the success of upstream contributions
to reduce code maintenance overhead.
● Increase influence over OSS to incorporate the
improvements needed to support products and
services.
● Ensure we're getting the most value possible
out of involvement in OSS communities.

Improve Corporate Strategy
● Provide better evaluations of open source
software.
● Provide unique competitive intelligence about
open source industry.
● Keep Samsung informed about technical focus
of industry leaders.

Thank You!
Blogs.s-osg.org/metrics

Open Source Metrics to Inform Corporate Strategy

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