The Symbian Foundation will share the lessons learned by itself and its contributor community, during the first months on its journey towards open software development. We will explore challenges and reflections on community building, open source leadership, collaboration, development and incubation processes as experienced in this ambitious open source endeavour.
9. 7 Looking to solve problems such as ... What Infrastructure is needed? Bug tracker, Mailing Lists, SCM system, etc. How do different parts ~of the community work together? Collaboration Process What are the different open source roles? Package Owners, Committers, etc. How is the platform governed? Feature & Roadmap, Architecture, UI and Release councils How will the code base be structured? System model and technology domains How are roadmaps created? AND MANY MORE …
10. 8 BUT: of course there were some issues ! Gaps, unintended consequences, somethings did not fit Helped give Symbian a GOOD START
11. 9 Preparing the Code3rd party IP and the initial contribution Preparing the Code 3rd party IP and the initial contribution After 10 years the codebase contained a big portion of 3rd party IP Which could not be open sourced 40 Million Lines of C++
12. The IP Challenge 40 million lines of code had to be checked for IP violations Many false positives Many benign cases (e.g. code copied from a book) It took 6 months to identify all serious IP issues 16% of components had an instance of an IP issue 94 cases altogether Affected code needed to be removed initially Ultimately replace by open source friendly code
21. Do I need to change my business model?This takes time Many eco-system companies are concluding this process Early birds are thriving A shock for the eco-system 14
30. More discussed at SEEInitial contributions: Smaller contributions just happen! Hard to track Other contributions so far … Contributions being worked on …
36. Lesson: A STRONG FOUNDATION 21 A strong team of community managers and technology managers An open source organization with some technical capability And prove to community that the model works And show opportunities Can find and work withvendors who may want tocontribute Can initiate projects Because of results the community takesinitiative
38. 23 Members Companies Using and contributing SFL Package EPL Package Everybody Using and contributing A beta period towards going open source : learn, fix & de-risk Two stages to true Open Source
39. Moving to the EPL So far: learning how to EPL, such that ourcommunity can movefaster Build 16 out of 134 Kernel: Kernel,beagleboard, qemu Security IDE, hostenv, etc. 24
49. Lesson: OPENESS 29 Open Management Our community like the fact that roadmaps, backlogs, minutes, etc. are publicly available! Worry to share information that can be used to deduce trade secrets Culture Change & Cultural Collision Many are experimenting with IDEAS – being open can lead to embarrassment Be as open as you can BUT do not force your community to be!
Membership model – similar to the Eclipse Foundation The funding members pay our bills and in return get a board seat
170 members so far And growing Funding members shown in the book Device Vendors Operators OEMs
STORY OF THE CREATION OF THE FOUNDATION STORY STARTS before the foundation was created: middle of 2008
ONLY PLANNING WAS POSSIBLE – LEGAL REQUIREMENT. NOTHING COULD BE EXECUTED UNTIL Symbian – Nokia sale was completed I was on one of those teams We talked to a lot of OPEN SOURCE ORGANISATIONS to find out what needed to be done, e.g. Mozilla, Apache, Eclipse
Talk through some of the detail!
The process concluded with a number of VERY LARGE documents All BASED ON THEORY ... BUT: Cannot anticipate everything up-front AND this was a blessing
DATA: TOTAL: 16% of packages have an instance of an IP issue today : 94 individual cases (58 are of them have been addressed since beginning of OCT) 38 still to be resolveUse-cases: Commercial vs. Incompatible open source license RVCT: compiler run-time. Binary R&D. We put a built library into all the kits (can develop, but can’t modify) Adobe & Flash: wrapper/adaptation is open source – library is delivered as binary Generic: codecs = plug-in idea, eventually we are working towards getting full OSS variants Giving us full source: mention company ARICENT of MM codecs – all adaptation work Monotype – fonts MTP ?TapRoot? 3GPP TSY FAT32 Column “How present”One of the challenges we are facing are: Open source business models – some of our members & members of eco-system still establishing their OSS strategies. What to do with their assets? What is core/differentiator and what is an enabler. Do not know whether they would give a differentiator away?Evolving people’s BIZ model!
Resolution mechanisms: Contribution = companies contribute source code to the foundation R&D license = companies provide binaries that can be shipped in development kits Non-core item (NOT NEEDED FOR A DEVICE): a hole that can be filled by commercial 3rd party IP. E.g. QUICK OFFICE SUPPORT
[15 mins]FILLING IP HOLES PRESENTED AN INTERESTING CHALLENGE ....
That IP challenge is part of a bugger challengeChanging an eco-system from a proprietary world to an open source world
UIQ – Examples: Prof Services – IXONOS, Accenture, & others – creating competition Operators – Orange Opportunities for companies who have not been part of the eco-system before: e.g. SUN
All people who knew the technology worked in a proprietary environment beforePERSONAL:More than I do now?Which people in my team do I need to get on my side to be successful? How do I convince them to help me?Never done this beforeSF STAFF:4) Showing to package owners that this can be done – guiding them through – anticipating problems
2) OSS organisation & leader
At this point I wanted to THANK COMPANIES THAT HAVE ALREADY CONTRIBUTED – I wont talk you through the slidesAT THE BEGINNING: I ACTIVELY TRACKED SMALL CONTRIBUTIONS – BUT I HAVE GIVEN UP. I CANT KEEP ON TOP OF THEMINVOLVED IN BIG CONTRIBUTIONS BIG THINGS: like introduction of SMP, a bluetooth v3 stack, a new printer framework
A lot is about building enough momentum: THUS the image of the DOMINOs
Note: Hard to find data as to how long it takes large open source projects to get into “gear”
One of the challenges we have been and are facing are: Open source business models / strategies Our eco-system and members were/are still establishing their OSS strategies What to do with their assets? What is core/differentiator and what is an enabler? Do not know whether they would give a differentiator away?Evolving people’s BIZ model! ... THIS IS A MOUNTAIN WHICH WILL RECURR!!!
COUNTER INTUITIVE: Talk with other OSS orgs and they say “a big OSS organisation removes the need for the community to participate” WE DON’T CODE
[30 mins]SOLVING THE COMMON GOODS PROBLEM = REMOVING BARRIERS TO CONTRIBUTION
Target: at the latest June next year
Initial:11 packages
The COUNCILS were initially CREATED to GOVERN THE PLATFORMBUT: they are becoming ....
Anecdote: When we set up “UI migration” working group We made a call to the entire membership whether they wanted to participate (about 30 people on it, actively working on a problem) Many companies came forward, MANY companies were surprised we asked them to participate
Example: IDEAS: want to avoid embarrassment if they are not executed – e.g. That’s why we do not share CULTURE CHANGE: not sure what can be said CULTURAL COLLISION: different stake-holders in the mobile value chain are moving at different speeds
1: Neutrality is about being confident that a change in strategy, amount of spending, etc. of one party in the community does not affect your investment2: Is about being able to influence the direction of the platform, APIs, see roadmaps, etc. – about INDIVIDUALS and COMPANIESWhere are we?1: Neutrality – Governance & Councils, BUT due to the initial contribution the code is NOT YET OWNED by a DIVERSE community2: Development – When all is moved to EPLed, development will be open to EVERYBODY (not just member companies)
The X6, 5230 and N97 mini are coming soon – expected Q4 2009. All the rest have already shipped.All are S^1 devices = S60 5.0 / Symbian OS v9.4
