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Introducing //TODO for companies that are committed to open source

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Re: Introducing //TODO for companies that are committed to open source

#12
post #10

Okay I'm not sure this is well thought out, at least the sign on procedure is not. Here is a series of messages they present to the user: 1. It is for companies with dedicated resources for open source projects. 2. The person signing on has to mention the company he is with, so ideally a person from the "dedicated resource" or open source department of a prospective company? 3. They exist to discuss "how to shift own…

I kind of read that a bit differently.

First off, we can probably agree that not every corporate open source project is one that the community expresses an interest in. For those projects without community interest, this is moot.

For projects that the community does have an interest in, it can easily become unwieldy for a company to try and lead an open source project for a variety of reasons. I see it as beneficial to the company and the community for the community to gradually assume ownership of projects they are interested in.

Even if the community takes the project in a direction the company doesn't like, the company can always fork, or revert to an earlier version and continue. It seems like a win-win to me.

Re: Introducing //TODO for companies that are committed to open source

#13
Hey all, I've been part of pulling this initiative together and thought I'd just put together some of our early thoughts.

The primary purpose is to get the open source program managers from companies together. It turns out there are a bunch of challenges for companies who want to run open source projects effectively, and we discovered we had only rarely even shared our own experiences of doing so - let alone figured out how to improve things.

A roadmap for the group's work is still to be defined... at this point you should consider this an invite to get involved. But we imagine some of the outputs might include things like:

- shared best practices for running large open source programs well

- certain criteria or qualities that 'good' projects should aspire to (responsiveness to community, maintenance, test-coverage, clear licensing, etc)

- tooling & instrumentation that makes it easier for companies to reach and maintain those standards

- a directory of projects from members that meet some or all of those criteria

I don't want to imply that we're committing to do all of these, but perhaps these non-normative examples give a bit more colour to the sort of things we'll tackle.

If you're at all interested, please sign up. We hope to have a face-to-face workshop very soon to kick off the work and understand what members want to prioritize.

Re: Introducing //TODO for companies that are committed to open source

#14
post #6
post #2

After reading this announcement, I have no clue what this is or why my company might want to join it.

[deleted]

No, very much inclusive. We'll be getting back to all the companies interested in the very short term.

Re: Introducing //TODO for companies that are committed to open source

#15
post #7
post #2

After reading this announcement, I have no clue what this is or why my company might want to join it.

I agree with boucher. I have read every page on http://todogroup.org/ (don't worry, there were only a handful). There is nothing concrete about "talk openly, develop openly" other than the list of inaugural companies ("Box, Dropbox, Facebook, GitHub, Google, Khan Academy, Square, Stripe, Twitter, and Walmart Labs" from the blog post, though only some of those are listed on the official website). I suppose that this i…

I shared a few more (personal) thoughts about what the group can achieve above in a neighbouring comment.

Re: Introducing //TODO for companies that are committed to open source

#16
post #3
post #2

After reading this announcement, I have no clue what this is or why my company might want to join it.

Agreed. "What it looks like to release open source projects, how to shift ownership of projects from companies to the community, and how to make sure that open source projects remaining healthy and active" has been discussed for almost 20 years. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they have something to contribute here, but why not hold the announcement until they actually say what they're going to…

For open source in general, we absolutely agree... but company-run projects aren't always as successful - and yet we feel they can be a valuable part of the overall open source landscape.

Re: Introducing //TODO for companies that are committed to open source

#17
post #10

Okay I'm not sure this is well thought out, at least the sign on procedure is not. Here is a series of messages they present to the user: 1. It is for companies with dedicated resources for open source projects. 2. The person signing on has to mention the company he is with, so ideally a person from the "dedicated resource" or open source department of a prospective company? 3. They exist to discuss "how to shift own…

Certainly as someone in a company's open source program, we should talk :) I am too.

Sometimes even company projects reach a level of maturity at which they can feasibly graduate to community or foundational ownership.

At Facebook, both React and HHVM have a stated interest in pursuing this outcome for example - but I'm pretty sure this does not make my role redundant any more than a teacher becomes redundant once their oldest pupils leave school each year :)

Re: Introducing //TODO for companies that are committed to open source

#18
post #6
post #2

After reading this announcement, I have no clue what this is or why my company might want to join it.

[deleted]

Why not sign up[1] then wait and see? I didn't see any indication that they are trying to form some kind of exclusive club.

1. http://todogroup.org/#join

Re: Introducing //TODO for companies that are committed to open source

#20

Hey all, I've been part of pulling this initiative together and thought I'd just put together some of our early thoughts. The primary purpose is to get the open source program managers from companies together. It turns out there are a bunch of challenges for companies who want to run open source projects effectively, and we discovered we had only rarely even shared our own experiences of doing so - let alone figured…

If I'm understanding the intent correctly, it sounds like the home page could use something like this:

  "Does your company release open source projects? Would you like to
   improve how you interact with the open source community to better manage
   and run your projects? Join your peers at //TODO and collaborate on 
   practices, tools, and other ways to run a successful and effective open
   source program."
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