Community engagement thoughts (for milestone #5)

[monicamcjunkin]

This covers a lot of ground, but wanted to share this article:
https://ben.balter.com/2015/03/17/open-source-best-practices-external-engagement/

Things I particularly like here are the discussions on stakeholders you might not consider, and types of contributions such as:
*Kick the tires, does the thing even work? Does it do what it says it does?
*Answer the question “what features would you love to see?”
*Flesh out documentation, ask questions, note where documentation is lacking
*Community evangelism, speak, teach, and spread your love for the project
*Submit new questions to the project’s Q&A forums, or take a stab at an answer or two
*Host a genius bar at the next local meetup
*Translate the project into a different language
*Give feedback on proposed bug fixes and features, propose new ones
*Recruit new developers, help junior developers grow into the project

Also a gem:
"As the maintainer of an open source project, you should think of your role as being the host of the internet’s most boring cocktail party. You are responsible for extending invitations to a diverse list of party goers, providing drinks and snacks, and as attendees arrive one-by-one, taking their coat and providing introductions to one another....You can’t be a host, however, if guests are only allowed to talk directly to you. That wouldn’t be much of a party, and in the case of open source, wouldn’t foster much of a community. "

[bilsch]

@skpy posted a good video link in slack - carrying forward here. tech republic why open source isnt just about code

[PhilNorman2]

From the video we could look at these outcome based benefits of open source like increasing market share, input for new features, innovation and transparency as selling points to different roles in different communities, e.g., market share to the corporate decision maker, innovation to the educational, government, and NGOs. Brings me to a seed of an outline:

1. Identify Communities we need to engage with, from SC OS community where engagement has already begun to commercial communities.
2. Roles within communities and examples of their needs.
3. Best practices for communicating with these communities and roles deriving from model orgs and other places
4. Issues, approaches, next steps

Thoughts? I can start on a wiki page with this outline and we can start filling it in.

[bilsch]

yea I agree. I tried to call those out via the model orgs about the roles. We will have a few roles that may not be part of the ASF.

We will have data related roles in addition to software development. Things like data curator, data owner and the like.

[PhilNorman2]

I have started the wiki page at:
https://github.com/SmartColumbusOS/TechnicalWorkingGroup/wiki/Community-Engagement.
Let me know if you have issues with it. I only have a couple of recommendations so far and they are pretty low hanging fruit. I will keep working on it. If folks have ideas please contribute. I think it is important that we include some indication of the value in each recommendation rather than just a list.

[PhilNorman2]

I think I have done enough damage with the wiki page. I have categorized the recommendations under:

1. Governance embodying open source principles
2. Outreach
3. User experience
4. Intake and project management

Looking for feedback/contributions.

[skpy]

Nice work!

The opening sentence raised a question for me:

"As part of developing an open source footprint for the SmartCity Columbus..."

I apologize in advance if this has already been hashed out, but as a newcomer this sentence has me wondering whether open source is something to be bolted onto the project, or if the project is intended to be fully open source by design? An "open source first" mindset is different from one that is "some parts may be open."

I also suggest more emphasis on the "structured onboarding" and "intake process", at the end. I believe that easy entry into the community is an important aspect of community management. The more barriers erected between newbie and card carrying veteran, the more risk there is of a monoculture of thought. New participants should be welcomed, and have meaningful ways to engage on useful work. This is something that many projects get wrong (because it's very hard), by only allowing new users to work on small-fry stuff, or requiring an inordinate amount of hoop-jumping to contribute.

[PhilNorman2]

Thanks @skpy. I would certainly like it to be "open source first" and I think the SCode group is following that. I am not sure about the software vendors, or what the expectations are there. This is a key community question that I feel like we need more guidance on from the facilitators.

On the second point, feel free to add bullet points or make modifications to raise that concern. I think your statement:

'New participants should be welcomed, and have meaningful ways to engage on useful work.'

captures it very well. And it should be clear that we are not saying that we will simply lift and plop down the examples from model orgs whole cloth, e.g., Apache Incubator.

Also, FYI, I just added a new category for licensing based on a chat session with Adam on friday. There were some components of that before but I felt it should be elevated.

[monicamcjunkin]

With respect to the question that @skpy raised, I was told at the outset of this segment that being open source was part of the operating system's charter. The decision has already been made by others and it's our job to advise on the best way to do that.

[PhilNorman2]

@monicamcjunkin the statement that "open source was (is) part of the operating system's charter" helps clarify. This implies we are creating a target state. But since SmartColumbusOS is already delivering functionality. That means there will be a transformation from current state to target state. The current state is a black box, at least to me. For example, who owns the Intellectual Property for the current OS? I would guess the City of Columbus. Is it covered under licenses currently? Is it to be wholly open source or will there be a proprietary version?

[monicamcjunkin]

@PhilNorman2 All good questions, and I don't know. This would be good to bring up in our next weekly call on Friday.

[bilsch]

With respect to the question that @skpy raised, I was told at the outset of this segment that being open source was part of the operating system's charter. The decision has already been made by others and it's our job to advise on the best way to do that.

I had wanted to link to the charter and other documents on our wiki / elsewhere if that stuff is public. I've asked about it a few times