Meritocracy in KDE
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Transcript of Meritocracy in KDE
Yes No
Go coding/fishing/diving...
Is life peachy?
Stick head in sand.
Sunday, July 1, 12
Meritocracy in KDE
Part of the “Companies are Community” series
Akademy 2012
Mirko Boehm ([email protected])
Sunday, July 1, 12
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 BerlinCWD: ~miroslav@silberpfeil: >
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How things get better - an algorithmic perspective.
Yes No
Take appropriate action.
Go coding/fishing/diving...
Is life peachy?
Sunday, July 1, 12
Observe Part I
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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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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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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.
Android Qt Symbian MeeGo Mozilla WebKit Linux KDE Eclipse
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Perc
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Reflect Part II
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Voice or Exit
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Community
• Meritocracy of all individuals who contribute
• Self-directed
• All doors open approach
• (S)He who does the work decides
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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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The role of commercial contributors
Formal Economy Informal Economy
Peer Production
Companies Volunteers
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Act! Part III
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Our vision: Improve by default
Get better in every iteration
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Proposal: Extend the Code of Conduct
Contributor’s Rights and Responsibilities
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Contributor’s Responsibilities
• Be open about goals
• Be transparent about activities
• Be committed longer-term
• Be generous
• Be humble
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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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Proposal: Open by Default
Improve Transparency
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Minimize Discrimination
• Technical vs. non-technical contributors
• Volunteers vs. companies
• Users vs. contributors vs. e.V. members
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Thank you for listening! Questions?
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References
• [1] http://www.visionmobile.com/product/open-governance-index • Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44523343@N00/474411576/
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