In the last few weeks, I started to build up a knowledge base about what works and what does not work in other open source communities. You may remember that I had talked to a number of seasoned Eclipse open source leaders at EclipseCon to gather and build on their experiences.
Interestingly, the contributor community in Eclipse is currently debating whether and how it should change in the face of recession. The debate centres around the State-of-Eclipse series by Bjorn Freeman-Benson and covers topics such as:
- Diversity: How diverse are and should Eclipse open source projects be?
- IP Burden: Discusses the pitfalls of high barriers to contributing code, using IP cleanliness as an example.
- Not a product (also see [1]): Should Eclipse be a platform or a product?
- Member Promotion (also see [2]): How much opportunity for member companies to promote themselves should be provided by Eclipse and how?
- It’s a New World: Discusses how to community should respond to the recession and to disruptive changes in IT, such as cloud computing.
- Free to Talk: A number of axioms, such as “open discussion and collaborative decision making is superior to hierarchical control”.
- Commercial Success is our Success: Covers the tension between free and commercial software in Eclipse.
- Balanced Resource Allocation: Makes the case for spending more Eclipse foundation resources on supporting contributor communities versus marketing activities.
Some of these topics were touched on when I talked to Eclipse project leads and foundation staff: they have moved on and created a very lively debate in Eclipse. The debate has spread to a number of further blog entries on Planet Eclipse. Check it out yourself and watch the space.
You may ask why is this relevant to Symbian’s communities and the Symbian foundation. It is, because we have an opportunity to learn from others and build a model that works during hard as well as good economic times. Our different communities are just forming and are embarking on a journey of figuring out what works for them: this includes processes, culture, values, etc. That journey becomes easier when we exchange experiences with other open source communities.
Over the coming weeks I will start to publish the material that I have gathered. We are also creating a portal on the foundation web site for processes and practices: it will not be perfect. There will be gaps. There will be spaces for discussion. The aim is to create something that works for you: to do this we will need your input. I am looking forward to a lively debate!
> I am looking forward to a lively debate!
Indeed. I am particularly looking forward to seeing how the Foundation (many corporate sponsors) builds a community that compares to Android (one uber corporate sponsor) and LIMO (free-for-all).
I’d like to comment to just 2 aspects if I may.
1. cloud computing.
- just 3yrs ago in many western countries this could NOT have been done successfully due to bandwidth and also tariff or contract data plan data pkg restrictions. Now with the recession affecting many countries – estimated 8mth duration from today – many coders MUST think of applications that can run NATIVELY with a local db that can still update content when needed or when user chooses to do so. Nokia Maps, Route66, etc etc are GREAT examples for users travelling to new cities/provinces or states/countries and only need a portable mobile map and no turn by turn navigation with voice guidance. The later two features/luxuries; especially to pedestrians is not needed for most users of mobile digital maps.
2> Freeware. Do NOT think to squash freeware in the symbian foundation market. In fact I believe that apps set as freeware – with no update costs other than network data to the end user – should be re-imbursed for the app Symbian-Signed costs to the coder!! Reason being is freeware apps, especially PyS60 apps spark incredible ideas, or foundations that for sale app company’s or coders can extrapolate, grow on, and work with to offer a better product or service with great refinement and improvements worthy of charging! A good lot of freeware keeps most people from searching for ways to pirate applications.
I whole-heartedly agree with prom1’s 2nd point: Remove the barriers to small-time app developers – both those giving their work away for free (freeware, open-source, pintware – whatever) and hobbyist or part-time developers trying to earn a bit of pocket-money on the side. Ideally signing and publishing of apps (e.g. to app stores) should be free. Bear in mind that whatever’s good for the freeware developers will most likely be good for commercial developers too (less costs = more profit!) so there shouldn’t be any risk of alienating them.
So far I think things have been skewed towards commercial app developers in the Symbian world. Publisher ID costs, signing costs, SDN++ subscriptions, non-free versions of the better Carbide versions (in the past – fortunately that was stopped last year!) etc. Hell, even the Ovi Store currently requires you to be a registered business in order to sign up and publish things. All that stuff just makes freeware or hobbyist developers feel like second-class citizens which as prom1 pointed out reduces diversity and innovation in the eco-system and ultimately hurts everybody.
I can’t imagine that whatever profits Symbian Ltd. and friends made off those kinds of activities in the past was significant in the grand scheme of things yet it’s caused a lot of pain for developers and earned a bad reputation that will take time to undo. Hopefully lessons will be learned.
James, Prom1: I started this blog post to show what kinds of discussions are going on in other open source communities, and to show the lively debate which is happening around serious issues. There was really no attempt to favour one group over another.
Nobody here is thinking about squashing freeware. In fact many of the costs that app developers are exposed to are going away in the foundation world. And without a vibrant market for applications, including freeware, the platform can’t be successful.
David: I don’t see community building purely as a foundation activity. It is really a multi-party dialogue. Communities grow and evolve and will need to move towards an equilibrium that provides benefits for everybody involved. The role of the foundation is to listen, help and support the community along the way.