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The Symbian Foundation will share the lessons learned by itself and its contributor community, during the first months on its journey towards open software development. We will explore challenges and reflections on community building, open source leadership, collaboration, development and incubation processes as experienced in this ambitious open source endeavour.
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Towards an Open Development CultureLars Kurth, Contributor Community
This talk is about sharing what we have learned in the last 8 months!
Nokia acquires Symbian Ltd
A short history
1998
2008
Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. Public
Symbian Ltd was founded
2009
2006
100 millionphones shipped
250 different phone models
250 million phones shipped
Initial codecontribution
3
An independent nonprofit open source organization
Membership based Board of directors staffed by funding members
We are …
Members 2009
Preparation work:Preparation work:Seeding the creation of the Foundation
Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 6
Expert teams Staffed by Nokia and Symbian Ltd to look at specific problems
More than 100 people were involved
Oversight by founding members
Planning the Foundation
7
Looking to solve problems such as ...
What Infrastructureis needed?Bug tracker, Mailing Lists, SCM system, etc.
How is the platform governed?Feature & Roadmap, Architecture, UI and Release councils
How are roadmaps created?
What are the different open source roles?Package Owners, Committers, etc.
How will the code base be structured?System model and technology domains
How do different parts ~of the community work together?Collaboration Process
AND MANY MORE …
8
Helped give
Symbian a GOOD START
BUT: of course there
were some issues !
Gaps, unintended consequences,
somethings did not fit
9
Preparing the Code3rd party IP and the initial contributionPreparing the Code3rd party IP and the initial contribution
40 Million Lines of C++
After 10 years the codebase contained a big portion of 3rd party IP
Which could not be open sourced
The IP Challenge
40 million lines of code had to be checked for IP violations Many false positives Many benign cases (e.g. code copied from a book)
It took 6 months to identify all serious IP issues 16% of components had an instance of an IP issue 94 cases altogether
Affected code needed to be removed initially Ultimately replace by open source friendly code
Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation.
Handling IP Holes
11
Removing code left “dirty holes” – aka components that did not build.
Refactor code such that components build – “clean holes”
Contribution, R&D License or non-core
items(leave the
hole)Fill the holes …(on average 10 per month)
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Challenge:negotiating IP issues
The cultural challenge:The cultural challenge:changing an eco-system
14
Eco-system: what to do?
Raising questions such as …• Will Symbian still be
around in a year?
• What is the opportunity?• What is the risk?• How does the game
change?• How do I adapt?• Do I need to change my
business model?
This takes time
Many eco-system companiesare concluding this process
Early birds are thriving
A shock for the eco-system
Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 15
How do I find 130 open source leaders who know their technology?
I Can’t! Experts need to grow into open leaders over time!
Personal “change” challenges• Why would anybody want to
contribute?• What do I need to do to be successful?• What support can I count on • What am I allowed / not allowed to do?
Solution: education, supporting, mentor and rewarding desired behavior!
Solution: foundation staff leading and act as role models
Community Leadership: in its Infancy
Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 16
All contributions satisfy a SELFISH NEED!
Show me the NEED
Show me the MONEY
We had to learn what motivates contributions
Transfer the knowledge to the community
Starting the Contributor Community
Transfer the knowledge to our open source leaders
Contributions: Thank You !!!
17
Initial contributions:
Contributions being worked on …
Other contributions so far …
Major contributionsin the making• 3 from Japan• 5 from Nokia • 7 otherwise• More discussed at SEE
Smaller contributions just happen! Hard to track
Lessons learnt!Lessons learnt!
So far …
How are OSS projects normally created?
19
IdeaProprietaryMi
• Process takes between 2-24 months• Project adds 2-3 committers • Process requires a large amount of support• Apache average: 14 months
Incubator
Project
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How can you do this as FAST as possible when you have a HUGE initial contribution?
Lesson: A STRONG FOUNDATION
21
A strong team of community managers andtechnology managers
Can find and work withvendors who may want tocontribute
And prove to community that the model works
An open source organization with some technical capability
Can initiate projects
Because of results the community takes initiative
And show opportunities
Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 22
Building and releasing the platform and development kits.
Many open source projects struggle with common goods
Testing for compatibility
A variant of the Tragedy of the Commons
Solution: the open source Foundation delivers critical common goods
Lesson: Common Goods
23
SFL Package EPL Package
Members CompaniesUsing and contributing
EverybodyUsing and contributing
Two stages to true Open Source
A beta period towards going open source : learn, fix & de-risk
Moving to the EPL
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IDE, hostenv,
etc.
Security
Kernel,beagleboard, qemu
16 out of 134Build
So far: learning how to EPL, such that ourcommunity can movefaster
Kernel:
Lesson: Two stage process
25
The Good:• Time to staff the foundation• Time for community leaders to learn• Time to resolve challenges• Time to build momentum
The Bad:• Negative publicity• Negative sentiment from parts of
the OSS community
Lesson: LEAVE CHALLENGES
26
When the foundation started, significant parts of how it was to operate were still to define
Council members had some CHALLENGES to resolve
Actually this was a blessing!
Problems (which people care about)
builds sense ofOWNERSHIP
Big stake in solving these+ =
27
COUNCILS are becoming
mechanisms
for
COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION
Lesson: COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION
Councils:• F&R • Architecture• UI• Release
Lesson: LET EVERYBODY INFLUENCE
28
Working groups (e.g. UI migration working group)
SIGs: Special Interest Groups
BoFs and other interactive parts of our annual conference!
Sense ofOWNERSHIP
Symbian Idea Sitehttp://ideas.symbian.org/: 400 ideas added in a week UI Brainstorm
Lesson: OPENESS
29
Open ManagementOur community like the fact that roadmaps, backlogs, minutes, etc. are publicly available!
Many are experimenting with IDEAS – being open can lead to embarrassment
Be as open as you can
BUT
do not force your community to be!
Worry to share information that can be used to deduce trade secrets
Culture Change & Cultural Collision
30
Lesson: INCENTIVE STRUCTURE
NeutralityVendor Community
DevelopmentClosed Open
• Can I influence the direction of the community?
• Influence = protect investment
• Can I see roadmaps, influence the direction of APIs and the platform?
• Influence = make the platform work for me
31
Still lots to do and learn!
We have a very goodchance of succeeding
So far being part of this journey has been FUN, but also lots of HARD WORK!
Satio
F-03AF-01A F-08A
SH-05A
F-09A
SH-06ASH-06A Nerv
SH-07A
5230
SH-02AF-02AF-04A SH-03ASH-01A
X6 N97 Mini
N97
5800 Express Music
5530 Express Music
5800Navi
i8910
SH-04A
S^1 & S^2 devices in 2009
Some data to close...
33
In 2012 - 2014 there will be 372 - 525 million smart phones.
Open Source in Mobile is here to stay !!!
Symbian is projected to be the most used OS in 2012 & 2014
>60% of these will be based on open source operating systems
• Juniper Research
• Gartner