Building the CONNECT Open Source Community Brian Behlendorf Apache, Mozilla, CollabNet...and now working with HHS on CONNECT Copyright All Rights Reserved.

What is Open Source? First, It's About Licensing 1998 (though really much earlier) a definition for software licenses. Meaning: the nearly-unlimited right to read, modify, and redistribute the source code. 2 Copyright All Rights Reserved.

Exponential growth since: From 3 Copyright All Rights Reserved.

Open Source Can Also Be About Technology Consolidation All innovations go through a lifecycle from leading edge, to commodity, to legacy, where they become a burden to end users. Open Source software, as a disruptive innovation, can replace legacy code and provide a lower cost of entry, thus serving as a platform for new innovation. 4 Copyright All Rights Reserved.

“ ” Open Source Is Even More About How We Collaborate Open source, in other words, is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end, and that end is collaborative innovation. Matt Asay 5 Copyright All Rights Reserved.

User-Led Innovation Involving the users in the development process. Allowing them to climb a ladder, based on skills and need and investment of effort, from “first- time user” to “core contributor”. Enabling extensions – and bringing those into core on a regular basis. 6 Copyright All Rights Reserved.

The Apache Story Started by webmasters who didn't want to be web server developers,...who needed a platform for building cool websites,...who needed it for commercial purposes,...and who had, incidentally, a strong interest in seeing a common platform emerge around HTTP. 7 Copyright All Rights Reserved.

8 Team Photo

More Than Just LAMP and Firefox Mifos: Micro-Finance Miradi: Environmental Monitoring Martus: Human Rights Worker Secure Note-Taking / Comms Sahana: Disaster Relief Coordination Schooltool: Student Information Systems Plus over 160 Healthcare projects listed at the Wikipedia 9 Copyright All Rights Reserved.

What Are Attributes of a Successful Open Source Project? Visibility by the user-base into development tools, processes, decision-making, and roadmap. A sense of momentum, a persistant “core” of development activity. A ladder from “first-time user” to “core developer” based on skills and investment. A convergence of interests, leading to a diminished need to “fork” 10 Copyright All Rights Reserved.

OSS Projects Need A Healthy Commercial Ecosystem Open Source developers, in general, don't do it for free. Some vendors incorporate code into their product, fixing bugs along the way or adding features, and feeding those back to the community. Other vendors specialize in additional products or support, and take on a stewardship role for the project. Individuals might take on consulting jobs on specific tasks, but also work to keep their skills sharp and enhance their reputation. Great projects recognize the need for that, and their potential role in making that materialize. Drupal: 62 consultancies listed on drupal.org, hundreds of consultants, 61 jobs mentioning Drupal at monster.com Another example: Eclipse 11 Copyright All Rights Reserved.

Screenshot of Eclipse

CONNECT is “smart plumbing”, but every household it's connecting to is different, and has different needs. Those needs do have commonalities – how do we find them and optimize how we build to them?. Why Does This Matter to CONNECT? Rich standards and open source software that implement them can co- evolve. CONNECT can be the proving ground for new standards work Harmonizing EHR exchange is about more than record transfer, it's about driving common technology, terminology, and practices Copyright All Rights Reserved. 13

Open Development Processes Arriving ASAP An Open Source Community Strategy for CONNECT Copyright All Rights Reserved. 14 Open Development Tools Community- Building Actions

Open Development Tools Public Subversion source code repository –Transparency into the reasons for changes. –See changes as they happen. Public issue tracking database –Bugs, tasks, and “stories”, in a system used by the core developers. Public developer and end-user discussions –Gives developers a place to engage users during development, and users a place to contribute ideas and code. –Gives users a chance to help each other. 15 Copyright All Rights Reserved.

Screenshot: Subversion: Issue List - Mozzilla Firefox

Open Development Processes Goal: turn users into software collaborators, gain the advantages of many eyes and hands working on common code. The current development team uses SCRUM methodology with bi-weekly sprints, which is serving them well. Opening SCRUM without slowing down development will require careful thought and planning that is just beginning. Lots of open questions: how do we ensure accountability to the current project stakeholders? 17 Copyright All Rights Reserved.

Community-Building Actions Enable user-led innovation by being a home for adapter development, patches, and other opportunities for development beyond the committed core. Code-a-thons near the Change Control Board's quarterly meeting, and other developer in-person activities. Once an active contributor community emerges, we'll start conversations around governance. 18 Copyright All Rights Reserved.

The Whole World is Watching CONNECT and related health IT projects are critical to improving the effectiveness of healthcare spending. If we can work with the vendor community to reduce the cost of the “boring” plumbing of healthcare IT, we can free up resources to put towards new and important innovations. Open Source has a series of proven examples for us here. Let's get this right! 19 Copyright All Rights Reserved.

Participating in Our Future Copyright All Rights Reserved. 20 Upcoming events to keep up the momentum: Webinar: Regarding Updates from CONNECT 2.0 to 2.1: July 28, 2-4 pm Code-A-Thon: Summer 2009 in DC Area more information will be posted online at in the coming weeks. All registered CONNECT Seminar participants will be contacted via .