community engagement
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Community Engagement
Sander van der WaalDevelopment Officer - OSS Watch
http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk
Agenda
OSS Watch
Engagement with Hadoop
Community
Shameless plug
About OSS Watch
http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk
OSS Watch what we do
Advice on all things open source
ServicesConsultancy, events, presentations, community development
PublicationsBriefing notes, surveys, case studies, blog posts
Free to UK Higher and Further Education
Engagement with Hadoop
How many of you have experienced these issues with Hadoop?
Deployment issues
Applying it to a specific use case
Customising locally
Engagement with Hadoop
How many of you are engaging with the Hadoop community to solve your problems?
Ask on the mailing list
Contribute your solution
Customisation / new functionality
"The real value of open source software is that it allows communities to work together and solve problems"
- Irving Wladawsky-Berger,Head of IBM's e-business on demand initiativehttp://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail495.html
Community
Who is this community?
Users Students, researchers, Institutional IT staff, Commercial
IT staff
Contributors Students, researchers, Institutional IT staff,
Commercial IT staff
MaintainersStudents, researchers, Institutional IT staff, Commercial IT staff
Why does this community care?
Open source is driven by user needWithout user feedback the project is blind
Assisting users ensures the user community expandsA large user community becomes self supporting
Some users become contributors
Some contributors become maintainers
Users = sustainability
Long term sustainability
It's all about the usersno users means no contributors
no contributors means no developers
no developers means no development
no development means no future prospect of attracting users
No users means no business opportunities
No business justification means no development
No users means no project
Engaging with the community
EvangelismRequirementsSupportBugsUseDocumentationDesignCodeContributeStrategyLegal OversightManage
Community only needs four tools
Coordination through collaborationWeb site
http://hadoop.apache.org or http://hadoop.a.o/sub_project
Communication Hadoop mailing lists
Issue
Trackerhttp://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HADOOP
Version Control Publicly accessible Subversion repository
Mailing Lists / Forums
Asynchronous (Supports geographic distribution)
Decision making
Problem solving
Support
Project Memory (Archives)Don't repeat yourself
Don't forget why a decision was made
Prior art record
Communications (forums / mailing lists)
New user supportInstallation
Customisation
Course development
Course delivery
Developer supportDesign
Implementation
MaintainersStrategy
Legal
Issue Tracker
Project planningWhat will be done
What may be done
What will not be done
IPR managementWho contributed what
Benefits - Long term sustainability
Do you have skill retention plans?We've just lost our team for
the second time in a year
Do you have local customisations?Are they compatible with future
version of Hadoop?
Can you upgrade quickly and cheaply? we made a decision not to upgrade
we tried to upgrade but....
Local specialisation
Engaging with external community extends and preserves project
memory beyond internal staff
Allowing local installations to diverge from new developments
can be dangerous
Local customisations should be contributed back
It's cheaper for you and helps secure the future of the project
What about regional communities?
Sub-optimal as limited expertiseMay not contain Hadoop
committers
Can be more comfortable
Makes physical meetings easier
Can be effective first level supportBut be aware of allowing bad practice to go unchecked
Regional support caveats
Public archives of lists
Open subscriptionEncourage commercial participants
If regional expertise is unsure defer to the official project
support
Don't duplicate effortPoint to and contribute to central resources
Shameless plug: OSS Watch Conference
TransferSummit/UK 2010
24/25 June 2010 - Keble College, Oxford
Open innovation / Case studies / Business and Community
Improve collaboration between academia and business
http://www.transfersummit.com
Shameless plug: OSS Watch BarCamp
26 June 2010 University Club, Oxford
Interactive informal discussions and meetups
Find out about each other's OSS projects
BarCamp >> active participation encouraged
Come along!
http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk