These are the slides of the presentation at the Akademy KDE conference of 2012. Based on the already great way of how KDE governance works, I identified areas where we excel (developer relations, contributor fluctuation), and areas where we can improve (relations to users and to companies or institutions in general. The talk was recorded, the video will hopefully be up soon.

1. Is life
peachy?
Yes No
Go coding/fishing/
Stick head in sand.
diving...
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2. Meritocracy in KDE
Part of the “Companies are Community” series
Akademy 2012
Mirko Boehm (mirko@kde.org)
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3. CWD: ~
miroslav@silberpfeil: >whoami
- KDE Contributor since 1997:
-- Hacking (kdecore, kdepim, applications)
-- board member 1999 to 2006
-- Desktop Summit 2011
- FSFE Germany team member
- researching Free Software and Intellectual Property
issues at TU Berlin
- married, two kids, lives in Berlin
CWD: ~
miroslav@silberpfeil: >
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4. How things get better - an algorithmic perspective.
Is life
peachy?
Yes No
Go coding/fishing/ Take appropriate
diving... action.
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5. Observe Part I
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6. Is life peachy at
KDE?
• Surprise: Yes, it is. (Mostly.)
• KDE - Largest meritocratic
volunteer driven FLOSS
community.
• Outstanding product.
• Stable contributor base, easy
to join, healthy fluctuation.
• Role model for how
communites work.
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7. Symptoms of Friction
• Users complaining about lack of quality improvements.
• Users complaining about lack of transparency.
• Contributors leaving for non-technical reasons.
• Failure to integrate commercial ecosystem.
• Problems establishing vendor pickup.
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8. How are others doing?
• Open Governance Index: “Equal and fair treatment of developers –
‘meritocracy’ – has become the norm, and is expected by developers with
regard to their involvement in open source projects.” [1]
• Here is Sebas’ and my assessment of KDE’s rating: 74%, second best.
100
90
80
70
Percent Points
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Android Qt Symbian MeeGo Mozilla WebKit Linux KDE Eclipse
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9. Reflect Part II
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10. Voice or Exit
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11. Community
• Meritocracy of all individuals who contribute
• Self-directed
• All doors open approach
• (S)He who does the work decides
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12. KDE e.V.
• Stakeholder’s association of volunteer contributors
• Only individual membership, no entities
• Invite-only membership
• Passive, supporting membership models
• Secret by default
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13. The role of commercial contributors
Companies Volunteers
Peer Production
Formal Economy Informal Economy
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14. Act! Part III
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15. Our vision: Improve by default
Get better in every iteration
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16. Proposal: Extend the Code of Conduct
Contributor’s Rights and Responsibilities
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17. Contributor’s Responsibilities
• Be open about goals
• Be transparent about activities
• Be committed longer-term
• Be generous
• Be humble
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18. New: Contributor’s Rights
• Influence development
• Be an equal among peers
• Benefit from own contributions
• Be part of the community, collaborate
• Exercise the Four Freedoms
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19. Proposal: Open by Default
Improve Transparency
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20. Minimize
Discrimination
• Technical vs. non-technical
contributors
• Volunteers vs. companies
• Users vs. contributors vs. e.V.
members
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21. Thank you for listening! Questions?
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22. References
• [1] http://www.visionmobile.com/product/open-governance-index
• Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44523343@N00/474411576/
22
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