Anatomy of a FOSS Project

class: center, middle

# CSCI 395.86 Open Source Software Development

## Anatomy of a FOSS Project

.author[
Stewart Weiss 
]

.license[
Copyright 2020 Stewart Weiss.
This work is derived from slides written by Joanna Klukowska, released under a
[CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) license, 
which may be found at
https://joannakl.github.io/ossd_s20/slides/anatomy_project.html. 
This work is released under a
 [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
]

---

## Elements of a FOSS Project
### (or what you should pay special attention to)

- The community and its structure

- Files with information and guidance

- Tools
   - Issue tracker
   - Communication channels

---
## Community and Its Structure: The Onion Model

.left-column2-large[
.center[
<img src="img/onion_model.png" width="500px"/>
]
]
.right-column2-small[
.small[
(1) Walt Scacchi. Role Migration and Advancement Processes in OSSD Projects:
A Comparative Case Study. 29th International Conference on Software
Engineering (ICSE’07). 2007, [PDF](https://www.ics.uci.edu/~wscacchi/Papers/New/Jensen-Scacchi-ICSE-2007.pdf)

(2) Y. Ye and K. Kishida. Towards an Understanding of the Motivation of Open
Source Software Developers. 25th International Confererence on Software
Engineering (ICSE’03). 419-429, 2003. [Web](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/776816.776867)
]
]

---
## The Onion Model

.left-column2[

__Center__

- Founder(s) - the person(s) who started the project; they may or may not
be involved in the leadership and decision making
- BDFL = _Benevolent Dictator For Life_
- General leadership - group of people making decisions about direction of the project
(generally based on the community feedback)

__Core Contributors__

- Most senior and experienced people in the project
- Provide guidance and mentorship to the newer community members
- Hold the _commit bit_ - they are able to approve changes made to the project

]
.right-column2[
__Non-core contributors__

- Make regular contributions
- Active in issue discussions
- Provide feedback to the newer members of the community

__New contributors__

- People interested in contributing to the project
- Still learning the structure of the project and how to interact with the
  community

__Users__

- People who use the project

]

---

## Important Files

- `README`

- `LICENSE` (and/or `COPYING`)

- `CONTRIBUTING`

- `CODE OF CONDUCT`

- Style Guides

- Other
  - `INSTALL` / `INSTALLATION`
  - `CHANGES` / `CHANGELOG`
  - `AUTHORS`
  - `CONTRIBUTOR LICENSE AGREEMENT` (or alternatively `DEVELOPER CERTIFICATE OF ORIGIN`)
  -  Other documentation: tutorials, walkthroughs, manuals, governance policies,
     especially on bigger projects.

---

## Tools: Issue Tracking

__Issue Tracker__ also called __Bug Tracker__ also called __Ticketing System__

- The _place_ where the project tracks issues related to the project

- What is the issue tracker used for?
  - feature requests
  - feature suggestions
  - bugs / problems discovered with the code or documentation
  - improvement suggestions
  - support questions
  - discussions about project design
  - team discussions

- How should _you_ use the issue tracker?
--

- The way the project community uses it!
      - Study existing issues (both open and closed), to learn how the
        community uses the issue tracker
      - If there is documentation about how to use the issue tracker, study it
      - Follow what you learned above in your own use of the issue tracker for that project

---

## Tools: Communication Channels

Communication channels fall into three different categories:
--

- __Asynchronous__ channels (parties do not need to be connected at the same time)
   - Examples: Discussion forums, mailing lists, issue trackers

- __Synchronous__ (parties must all be connected at the same time)
   - Examples: Conference calls, video-conferencing, live meetings, meet-ups

- __Partly asynchronous__ channels (provide both synchronous and asynchronous modes)
   - Examples:  Real-time Chat (IRC[1], Mattermost[2], Rocketchat[3], Slack[4], ... )

.footnote[
1 IRC is the acronym for Internet Relay Chat. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat 
2 https://mattermost.org/ 
3 https://rocket.chat/ 
4 https://slack.com/
]

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## Other Tools

- Other tools depend on the project itself

- You need to make sure that you are familiar with (or are willing to
  learn / have time to learn) the tools that the project uses.

---

## Sources

1. VM Brasseur, _Forge Your Future with Open Source_, The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC. 2018.
2. https://opensource.guide/how-to-contribute/#finding-a-project-to-contribute-to

---