Involvement of software companies in oss - serli-jerome petit - f os-sa2011

27/10/2011 Jérôme PETIT

Involvement of Software Engineering companies in OSS contributions : a virtuous circle

27/10/2011 Jérôme PETIT

A few words about SERLI

● Software engineering company based in France● 65 people● 80% of the business is Java-related● Small company working for big ones● OSS contribution : 10% of workforce ● www.serli.com @SerliFr

27/10/2011 Jérôme PETIT

Fewer words about me

● Lead New Information Systems activities at SERLI

● Injected massive Open Source contribution in the business model of the company in 2005

● Poitou-Charentes JUG leader● jerome.petit@serli.com @jeromepetit

27/10/2011 Jérôme PETIT

Involvement in OSS contribution

● We offer engineering time to OSS projects● From a few days to tens of man-monthes

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Targeted projects

● Editors projects

e.g. GlassFish, JBoss, Sonar

● Community projects

e.g. JOnAS, Selenium

● Home-made projects

e.g. JaasLounge

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Nature of contributions

● Bug fixes● Satellite features● Core features

From day-to-day production needs...

...to cutting-edge innovation

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What to contribute & When

● Community-driven● Editor-driven

→ features are choosen with community managers & project leaders

→ contribution planning matches project roadmap & release plan

27/10/2011 Jérôme PETIT

Examples of contributions● GlassFish : versionning, vmware support● Ceylon : Eclipse IDE support● Sonar : i18n support● Infinispan : CDI support● Weld : Weld-OSGi● JOnAS : JASPIC implementation● Selenium : Webdriver integration● Hibernate Validator : message interpolator ● ●

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How it actually does change things

● Impact on organization● Impact on business● Impact on human beings

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Impact on organization

● Visibility, credibility, attractivity

→We work on world-class projects

→ Editors & communities share the credit : blog articles, citations in conferences, twitter...

→ Our engineers talk at JavaOne, Devoxx...

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Impact on business

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Impact on business

● It is easier to convince new customers to come● We also gain new spontaneous customers

27/10/2011 Jérôme PETIT

Impact on business

● Cutting-edge visible contribution allows to gain new business cases & higher-end missions

● New business cases : implementing features editor's customers are asking for

→ Sonar i18n is sponsorized by customers, managed by SonarSource, developed by SERLI

27/10/2011 Jérôme PETIT

Impact on business

● People involved once in a visible OSS contribution have a quite full agenda

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Impact on business

SERLI evolution, from 2005 to 2010 :

● Total revenue : 1850 K€ → 4150 K€

● Java revenue : 10% → 80%

● New deals : classical solicitation → spontaneaous demand

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Impact on humans

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Impact on humans

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Impact on humans

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Impact on humans

● OSS development is a school of quality & transparency

● People learn different engineering cultures● Developers can realize their potential● Shy people can become brillant orators

→ OSS contributors become better professionals

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Impact on humans

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Virtuous circle(s)

Contribution

CreditVisibilitySkills++

High-end missionsNew customers

Revenue++High-end recruitment

27/10/2011 Jérôme PETIT

Virtuous circle(s)

Contribution

CreditVisibilitySkills++

High-end missionsNew customers

Revenue++High-end recruitment

Business ++ Quality ++

27/10/2011 Jérôme PETIT

Sustainability of the model

● Keep good balance between business & contribution

● Avoid developer overload (super-heroe myth)● Deliver the right software at the right time :

contribution has to be well-managed

27/10/2011 Jérôme PETIT

A few things I would like to share

● Challenging core features are the best choice : they give adrenaline & credibility... if you are good :)

● Manage contribution as any other project in the company... or the inverse

● Check that developers do not forget to sleep

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A few things I would like to share

● Community managers & project leaders are COOL

● Give all that you can : 100x returns guaranteed

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Acknowledgements● JOnAS team, Benoît Pelletier, Florent Benoît, Jacques

Cayuela, Guillaume Sauthier & all the Grenoble gang● GlassFish team : Alexis Moussine-Pouchkine, Hong Zhang,

Jérôme Dochez, Tim Quinn & so many others● Anil Gaur, VP Java Platform @Oracle● JBoss guys : Emmanuel Bernard, Pete Muir, Ales Justin,

Gavin King● Selenium folks from Google & Saucelabs● Olivier Gaudin from SonarSource ● The whole SERLI team

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Questions

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