1. OSS Development Team in a Company
2015/06/04
Ken’ichi Ohmichi
Ghanshyam Mann
NEC

2. Agenda Who are we? Purposes to join OSS development
Company viewpoint
Developer viewpoint
Growing steps of OSS developer
Step1: Fix trivial bugs
Step2: Review patches
Step3: Propose big features
Join OSS development community
Keep relation with s, IRCs and meetups
Educate new developers

3. Who are we? Ken’ichi Ohmichi Ghanshyam Mann
Software developer from NEC
Some proprietary software developments’ experience
OSS development experience related to Linux crashdump
OpenStack community member since 2012
Core developer of two OpenStack projects: Nova and Tempest
Ghanshyam Mann
Core developer of OpenStack project: Tempest

4. Purposes to join OSS dev - Company viewpoint -

5. Share Development Cost Between Companies
Some OSS codes are huge
Difficult to implement a competing software by a single company
v4.0.4
14ML
Kilo
3ML

6. Avoid maintenance cost of private changes
Make Feature De-fact
Avoid maintenance cost of private changes
High speed OSS changes(feature, bug-fix, cleanup)
Difficult to catch all changes

7. Keep High Quality
Detect/Fix bugs at upstream to help users including company’s consumers
3 core developers in our team do that at upstream

8. Follow Upstream-First Trend
Some projects’ requirements become to contain Upstream-First

9. Purposes to join OSS dev - developer viewpoint -

10. Skip Up Read/Write code without documents
Unnecessary to read/write many docs
Concentrate on code
Get feedback from skillful developers in the world
Sometimes negative feedback hurts us
But that is a good chance to lean technical knowledge

11. Get Friends In The World
Conferences/meetups hold in the world
Meet skillful developers directly and enjoy discussions
August 17-19
@Seattle
October 5-7
@Dublin, Ireland
March 29-30
Lake Tahoe, CA

12. Get Opportunities
OSS works are public and everyone can know OSS developers skills
Expose your experiences/specials on

13. Growing Steps of OSS developer

14. Growing Steps of OSS Developer
Lead OSS project
Leader
③Propose big features
Developer
②Review patches
①Fix trivial bugs
Use OSS
User
Time

15. Step1: Fix Trivial Bugs(1/2)
Trivial bug-fix patches are easy to be merged
Fix typos
Add error handlings

16. Step1: Fix Trivial Bugs(2/2)
Know community manners via patch mergers
Know coding style
Linux: Don’t use braces(“{ .. }”) for a single statement
OpenStack: Write imported modules order correctly
Know commit message format
Linux: Signed-off-by:
OpenStack: Closes-Bug: #xxx
Response feedback calmly
Sometimes get negative feedback
But that will be hint of improvement
Apply feedback to the patch quickly
Quick patch updates help reviewers
because reviewers can avoid brain context switching

17. Step2: Review Patches(1/3)
Patch reviews help community development
Reviews are important to decide whether the patches should be merged to upstream
But difficult to get enough reviews, because most developers prefer writing patches than reviewing patches by nature
Your reviews will help the other developments
Linus’s Rule:
Given enough eyeballs, all bus are shallow

18. Step2: Review Patches(2/3)
Developers can grow via patch reviews
Know upstream development trends
Lean what points are important from the other developer viewpoints

19. Step2: Review Patches(3/3)
Review coworkers’ patches
Easy to understand the purpose because of F2F communication
Avoid company private reviews, make them public instead
Review the other patches in particular area
Have good experience by writing patches also
Report the test result on some environments
Make review area wider
Know main trend of the OSS project
Propose reasonable features based on the trend
Growing

20. Step3: Propose Big Features(1/2)
Make features common
OSS seems like greatest common divisor
Common features are acceptable
Implement them by small steps
A single big patch is difficult to be reviewed
Make development proceed by small patches
Share big workload between developers

21. Step3: Propose Big Features(2/2)
Don’t stick on single implementation way
When getting feedback, developers tend to stick on their own implementation ways. But not important in most cases
Better to adopt good implementation way and apply feedback soon for going forward

22. Join OSS development community

23. Join OSS Development Community
Keep touch with s, IRCs and conferences/meetups
Way
Time Zone
Issue
Language
Fun s
None
Small
Middle
IRCs
High
Conferences
/Meetups
None, but Jet Lag
High, but we can feel some inspiration by F2F
Super High!!

24. Educate New Developers
Step 1: Share knowledge in a company internal team
Step 2: Join the upstream training
Step 3: Share knowledge in a community
OpenStack Upstream Training

25. Summary

26. Make a company internal team close to OSS upstream
Summary
Growing steps of OSS developer
Step1: Fix trivial bugs
Step2: Review patches
Step3: Propose big features
Join OSS development community
Keep relation with s, IRCs and meetups
Educate new developers
Make a company internal team close to OSS upstream
・Make process close to community manner
・Help the other community members
・Develop big features together

27. Managing the international OpenStack Development Team for Success
Related session
Managing the international OpenStack Development Team for Success
Friday, June 5
14:00 – Orchid 3
Topics: Culture, Language, Character and etc.