Yes No Go coding/fishing/ Stick head in sand. diving... Sunday, - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Is life peachy? Yes No Go coding/fishing/ Stick head in sand. diving... Sunday, July 1, 12

Meritocracy in KDE Part of the “Companies are Community” series Akademy 2012 Mirko Boehm (mirko@kde.org) 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 Berlin CWD: ~ miroslav@silberpfeil: > Sunday, July 1, 12

How things get better - an algorithmic perspective. Is life peachy? Yes No Go coding/fishing/ Take appropriate diving... action. Sunday, July 1, 12

Observe Part I Sunday, July 1, 12

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. Sunday, July 1, 12

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. Sunday, July 1, 12

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. 100 90 80 70 Percent Points 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Android Qt Symbian MeeGo Mozilla WebKit Linux KDE Eclipse Sunday, July 1, 12

Reflect Part II Sunday, July 1, 12

Voice or Exit Sunday, July 1, 12

Community • Meritocracy of all individuals who contribute • Self-directed • All doors open approach • (S)He who does the work decides Sunday, July 1, 12

KDE e.V. • Stakeholder’s association of volunteer contributors • Only individual membership, no entities • Invite-only membership • Passive, supporting membership models • Secret by default Sunday, July 1, 12

The role of commercial contributors Companies Volunteers Peer Production Formal Economy Informal Economy Sunday, July 1, 12

Act! Part III Sunday, July 1, 12

Our vision: Improve by default Get better in every iteration Sunday, July 1, 12

Proposal: Extend the Code of Conduct Contributor’s Rights and Responsibilities Sunday, July 1, 12

Contributor’s Responsibilities • Be open about goals • Be transparent about activities • Be committed longer-term • Be generous • Be humble Sunday, July 1, 12

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 Sunday, July 1, 12

Proposal: Open by Default Improve Transparency Sunday, July 1, 12

Minimize Discrimination • Technical vs. non-technical contributors • Volunteers vs. companies • Users vs. contributors vs. e.V. members Sunday, July 1, 12

Thank you for listening! Questions? Sunday, July 1, 12

References • [1] http://www.visionmobile.com/product/open-governance-index • Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44523343@N00/474411576/ 22 Sunday, July 1, 12