Collaboration within open source projects and other communities is becoming increasingly important for companies, but it can be difficult to strike the right strategic balance between the needs of the company and the community. This can create friction and put significant pressure on employees who participate on behalf of their company when the needs of the individual, the company, and the community are not strategically aligned. This talk will focus on ways to create this strategic alignment between individuals, companies, and the community to help all of us be successful together.

1. Strategies to Balance the Needs
of the Company and the Community
Dawn M. Foster
Open Source Software Strategy Lead at Pivotal
Community Manager Meetup at OSCON, July 2019
dafoster@pivotal.io @geekygirldawn fastwonderblog.com

2. @geekygirldawn
Whoami
! Geek, traveler, reader
! 20+ year tech career focused on
community & open source
(Intel, Puppet Labs, Scale Factory, etc.)
! PhD from the University of Greenwich
concentrating on Linux kernel collaboration
! Kubernetes contributor
! CHAOSS Governing Board / Maintainer
!2
Photos by Josh Bancroft, Don Park

3. Collaboration in OSS Projects:
individuals, companies, and
communities

4. @geekygirldawn
Individuals
Contributions
Leadership
!4

5. @geekygirldawn
Companies
Employees Contribute
Recruiting
Resources
!5
Image by The Linux Foundation CC BY

6. @geekygirldawn
Communities
Community = People
Small World
!6

7. Contribution Strategy
and Plans

8. @geekygirldawn
Contribution Strategy and Plans
Align with business goals
Execs understand importance
Employees see their impact
Image by Nick Youngston, Alpha Stock Images CC BY-SA
!8

9. @geekygirldawn
Which Open Source Projects?
Already Use
Existing Contributions
Image by Colleen Simon for Opensource.com CC BY-SA
!9

10. @geekygirldawn
Resources Required
Grow vs. Hire
Funding for Membership
!10

11. @geekygirldawn
Resources Required
Guidelines / Processes
OSS Program Office
Image by Nick Youngston, Alpha Stock Images CC BY-SA
!11

12. @geekygirldawn
Measure Success
Criteria for Success
Data Required (CHAOSS)
!12

13. Good Corporate Citizen

14. @geekygirldawn
Getting Started
Join
Read the Docs
Lurk & Understand
Start Small
Image by Filip Maljković CC BY-SA
!14

15. @geekygirldawn
Learn from Feedback
Avoid Getting Defensive
May Need to Iterate
!15

16. @geekygirldawn
Work with the Community
Discuss Changes
Early and Often
Lack of Control
Image by The Linux Foundation CC BY
!16

17. @geekygirldawn
Relationships
Attend Events
Get to Know People
Image by The Linux Foundation CC BY
!17

18. @geekygirldawn
Upstream your Patches
Reduces Your Overhead
Benefits the Community
Right Thing to Do
!18

19. @geekygirldawn
Maintenance Expectations
Small Contributions vs.
Large Contributions
!19

20. @geekygirldawn
Open Sourcing Your Software
No Dumping
Maintenance
Community
Image by C. Watts CC BY
!20

21. @geekygirldawn
Resources /
References
Learn more about
open source
collaboration and
related topics.
Linux Foundation TODO Group
! https://www.linuxfoundation.org/
resources/open-source-guides/
GitHub
! https://opensource.guide/
Red Hat’s Opensource.com
! https://opensource.com/
resources
!21

22. Dawn M. Foster
dafoster@pivotal.io @geekygirldawn fastwonderblog.com
Thank You and Questions

23. Transforming How The World Builds Software