What the CodePlex foundation can do for o/s projects

[Justin-Josef Angel]

Hi Folks,

After Sam's talk at last month's Monospace conference in Austin TX,
I've given his questions some braincycles and I'd like to share those
with you.


1. What should the foundation focus on?

Well, I'm as biased as you can get, but personally, I believe the
foundation should focus on the .Net ecosystem.
You never really hear about foundations getting involved in the
Microsoft stack all that often, and it's a massively under served o/s
space.

Obviously there are a lot of interesting open source ecosystems out
there, and the foundation has to be judicious on where to focus it's
limited resources. Still, having a foundation that focuses 80% of it's
efforts on the .Net opensource space would, in my opinion, go a long
way.
Farther than any other ecosystem in play.

2. What can the foundation do for open source .Net projects?

I realize we are all heavily tempted to say "Compensate full time open
source developers".
We all have our pet projects and we'd all like to see them turn a
profit, increase our sex appeal and provide us with nirvana-like
enlightenment. But truth be told - none of these are realistic
expectations.

I have serious reservations regarding paying open source developers
for 2 reasons:
1) It's not cost effective. on the xM$ funding the foundation has it
isn't realistic to keep a host of o/s project functioning.
I'd rather see 100 open source projects supported and elevated by the
foundation, rather than just 10.
As long as the contribution is meaningful and relevant, quantity is
still a factor here.

2) Incentive based volunteering has been proven time and again to fail
miserably.
Open source involvement is an act of passion, of devotion, and of
personal fulfillment.
Once you change those motives to Monterey compensation, it's been
empirically proven, that you'll get less bang for buck.

More on those studies can be found at these talks:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html - Showing that
monetary incentives are proven to detract quality from long running
creative tasks.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html
- Has a related study on how personal virtue trumps monetary
compensation at 10:53.


After giving this core question a month of spare braincycles I think
there's a better investment out there.
**** Hire a DPE (Developer Platform Evangelist) for open source
projects ****

I'd like to speak out on behalf of the massive Microsoft Developer
Marketing organization - it rocks.
Microsoft through it's DPE org has made the Microsoft Stack a
resounding success.

When people ask "Why isn't foo open source framework adopted and bar
Microsoft framework is?" the answer is always the same.
The Microsoft DPE org markets microsoft products.
And the DPEs are so competent, so articulate, so communicative, that
they effectively convey the benefits of frameworks and platforms.
Open source projects are mostly doomed to death by obscurity.

In my opinion, getting more adoption for open source projects, is all
about positive engagement with potential customers.

And let me make this clear: most open source projects evangelism done
nowadays ends up driving people away!

How many times have you seen open source advocates bash folks using a
comparable microsoft framework? Lots of times.
How many times have you read an angry blog post on a competing open
source framework from an advocate of another o/s framework? All too
often.
How many times have you watched a well organized webcast video series
on open source projects? Never.
When is the last time you went to a major conference (TechED, Mix,
PDC) and saw small-medium open source projects being promoted? Never.
(With the only exception I knew about being the Moonlight project)

Personally, I believe a good objective for the foundation would be to
hire a technical DPE that can engage with the community on it's on
terms.

Some possible duties for afore mentioned DPE could be:

1. Attend top-tier and local conferences. Decisions are made by people
who are in the room. People go to conferences to be educated.
That's single the best evniorment to expose developers to new ideas,
projects and frameworks.
That DPE should probably have a strong community reputation prior to
hiring so it makes it easier for him/her to speak at TechEd, Mix,
PDCs, TechDays, DevTeach, DevConnections and wherever not.

2. Produce technical content for the foundation promoted open source
projects.
In the Online world: Blogs, newsgroups, forums, webcasts, online
articles, tutorials etc.
And Offline: Publish books, write articles for magazines (CoDe
magazine, MSDN magazine, Visual Studio Magazine), help set up offline
lecture materials for local speakers, etc.

In my opinion, the single best thing the foundation can do for open
source projects, is put a professional, well-mannered and articulate
face to them.

I'd love to hear feedback on this idea.

Thanks for taking the time to read my 0.02$,
-- Justin

[Jeff Brown]

+1!

To some extent what is missing from many Open Source project is
effective PR and developer relations. Resources tend to be stretched
thinly with the bulk of the effort invested in achieving the
objectives of direct contributors. Projects tend to languish in
obscurity (or irrelevance) without articulate, visible and dedicated
sponsors plugged into the community zeitgeist. Open Source adoption
is driven by credibility.

Jeff



On Nov 16, 2009, at 12:28 PM, Justin-Josef Angel <J...@JustinAngel.Net>
wrote:

[mscherotter]

Justin,
I agree with you - too many developers love the "Field of Dreams"
adage - "If you build it, they will come." That isn't based in
reality. People adopt a technology because they can envision it
working for them. That's what good evangelists do - they have
conversations about the technology and help articulate its value. I
firmly belive that "everything starts with a conversation."
Michael
Media Experience Evangelist
Microsoft Corporation.

> More on those studies can be found at these talks:http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html- Showing that

> monetary incentives are proven to detract quality from long running

> creative tasks.http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdo...

[Justice~!]

> In my opinion, the single best thing the foundation can do for open
> source projects, is put a professional, well-mannered and articulate
> face to them.

Completely, *overwhelmingly* agree. I've been banging the "Open
Source needs *waaay* better marketing" for *years*. Great thoughts,
and not just because they're exactly like my own (although to be fair,
that's probably 80% of it ;) )

-Justice

[Jeff Brown]

Ok, so how do we effectively market Open Source projects?

I think we start off by marketing projects, not Open Source. Who cares if a
project is actually Open Source? Is it useful? Is it reliable? Can we get
support for it? Do we trust the team? Does the project have a good track
record? Does the roadmap represent our future interests? If it's broken
can we fix it? How much will it really cost us to use and maintain? Will
it help or hinder our growth? Should we use it as a stopgap to meet an
immediate need, couple tightly to it, or go it alone?

Marketing Open Source is useless unless the project itself is Really Good
(tm) and has credible backers. Being Open Source is just one check-box on a
project feature matrix.

Jeff.

[Rishi Oberoi]

As someone who’s actively involved with an o/s project, I wanted to re-
echo what Justin has said from the perspective of someone contributing
to a project. Financial gain, at least for individuals, is not the
primary motivator but as correctly stated it’s the passion/commitment
to one’s work and the need to go beyond the norm. However, from my
take a very important part to this is to gain recognition/
acknowledgement from one’s pairs and the community at large. It is
kinda like the fuel that pushes people over-and-over again to move
ahead without meeting the law of the dead-end street. However, when
you work in a vacuum without the attention and the necessary feedback-
loop, you will eventually give-up no matter how good the project is.
So if evangelists can help complete the loop, I think it will put in
motion the wheels that can lead the project to become self-sustaining.
And I suppose that’s where the tyre meets the road – the road to self-
sustainability.

I will also add that though financial gain is not the primary
motivation, it can play a healthy part if you can create a halo around
the project which financially benefits the project contributors. I
think that can strike a fair balance between the realities of a
supporting a project and the good motivations that underlie it. So
don’t totally discount the financial side to an o/s project.

So definitely evangelists are the much needed catalyst for most o/s
projects.
Rishi

> More on those studies can be found at these talks:http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html- Showing that

> monetary incentives are proven to detract quality from long running

> creative tasks.http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdo...

[Rodent of Unusual Size]

I sent his last week, but it kept getting undeliverable notices. So,
trying again.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rodent of Unusual Size <fuma...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 5:21 PM
Subject: Re: What the CodePlex foundation can do for o/s projects

To: codeplex-...@googlegroups.com

On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 3:28 PM, Justin-Josef Angel <J...@justinangel.net> wrote:
>
> 1. What should the foundation focus on?

There's another level/axis to this question that I think bears
discussion: namely,
what project environments does CPF want to support?

Some examples:
1. Currently closed projects currently that companies want to open.
2. Projects that are already open with some level of corporate adoption.
3. Open projects that don't have any corporate uptake to speak of.
4. Projects in their infancy, with little or no developer diversity yet.
5. 'Mature' or active projects with lots of activity from lots of sectors.
6. And many others.

Marketing is a  need all of those share.  But which of those should the
Foundation support?  Which help it fulfill its mission of

 "Enabling the exchange of code and understanding among software
 companies and open source communities"

Is it part of the Foundation's charter to help #3-type projects find more
corporate mindshare?  To help #1-type projects gain acceptance in
the open world?

I think this is a more basic question than the one originally addressed
in this thread.

Personally, I think that 'playing in the .Net space' would be a worthwhile
effort for the Foundation.. but this other question needs to be answered
so that it knows what to support.
--
Ken Coar
OSS developer, opinionist, author, and sanagendamgagwedweinini