The Value of Open Source Communities

David Smith@revodavid

davidsmi@microsoft.com

R Community Lead, Microsoft

The Value of Softwarelies in its ecosystem

Technical Capability

Governance

Vendor Support

Community Resources

Talent Pool

Legal IssuesThe Value of Softwarelies in its ecosystem

New York Times, June 25 2009(3 hours after Michael Jackson’s death)

Language PopularityIEEE Spectrum Top Programming Languages, 2016

Working with the R FoundationSupporting the R user communityContinuing the growth of the R ProjectLinux Foundation collaborative projectNon-profit trade organization

April 6, 2015

10 Transformations to a Community Mindset Fixed Community Mindset Transformations

Fixed Mindset Community Mindset1 Waits for communities to form Accelerates new community growth (recruiting)2 Engages friendly communities first Engages the most impactful communities 3 Goes in with an agenda to push Focus on enabling their success.4 Begins engagement after “enough” members have joined Starts engagement when the community is launched5 Works within the limitations of the community leader Invests in helping to better the community leader

6 Stays away from communities with competitive sponsors Engages and connects the best sponsors to the community

7 Abandons the community when the leader/group gets “burned out”

Sources co-leaders for the community and evolves the community to the next related technology

8 Makes community engagement “everyone’s job” but no one’s direct responsibility

Establishes a single “go to” resource accountable for community success

9 Engages randomly and opportunistically Agrees to a community engagement plan with the leader

10 Measures presentation numbers Measures community satisfaction & share (agendas, groups) growth

Community-Building Tips

Be humanTell stories and promote heroesListen, and show you’ve heardEarn trust, have trustNurture the grass-rootsEnhance the value of the ecosystem

Further reading: The Art of Community – Jono Bacon

The Value of Open Source Communities

David Smith@revodavid

davidsmi@microsoft.com

R Community Lead, Microsoft

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The Value of Open Source Communities The value of open source isn’t just in the software itself. The communities that form around open source software provide just as much value and sometimes even more: in ongoing development, in documentation, in support, in marketing, and as a supply of ready-trained employees. Companies who build on open source tend to focus on the software, but neglect communities at their peril.In this talk, I’ll share some of my experiences in building community for an open-source software company, Revolution Analytics, and perspectives since the acquisition by Microsoft in 2015. David Smith is the R Community Lead at Microsoft. With a background in data science, he writes daily about applications of R and predictive analytics at the Revolutions blog (blog.revolutionanalytics.com), and is a co-author of “Introduction to R”, the R manual. Follow David on Twitter as @revodavid