A presentation at Northern Ireland Developer Conference in in Belfast, UK by Iancho Dimitrov
Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company NIDC Belfast 2019
Plan 1. Motivation – why discuss this? 2. Our story 3. How to try this in your company? NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 2
Why Discuss This? • Open Source is good – no need to explain why… • Dedicated in-house open source initiatives: ▪ rare ▪ …and especially rare in service companies NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 3
The “Usual Suspects” – Organization Profiles • Companies – focused around open source products NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 4
The “Usual Suspects” – Organization Profiles • Companies – open-sourcing part of what they create NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 5
The “Usual Suspects” – Organization Profiles • Non-profits – focused on open source projects • Companies – heavily using and dependent on open source products • Academic projects – publicly funded NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 6
Why Discuss This? …so what if your company doesn’t fit in any of the “Usual Suspects” profiles? NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 7
About You? • Type of the company you’re working for: ▪ not a “Usual Suspect” type? • Dedicated open source contribution initiatives in-house? NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 8
How Can It Happen? Q: Why do companies do something (that costs)? A: Most of the times – because there is a business case for that. NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 9
How Can It Happen? 1. Business case – imagine, come up with one and design it well 2. Gather feedback & supporters – and fine-tune it 3. Pitch it to decision makers and convince them it makes (business) sense 4. Start small – trial phase, make sure it’s a success – then get a ‘go’ for long-term project commitment 5. Continue and maintain it in a sustainable way NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 10
Plan 1. Motivation – why discuss this? 2. Our story 3. How to try this in your company? NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 11
Our Story What Musala Soft is ✓ Software development services since 2000 ✓ 500+ experts in Bulgaria and Macedonia ✓ AI, Big Data Analytics, IoT, Smart Home, Industry 4.0, Cloud Integration & API Mgmt. ✓ Java, .NET, Front-end, Mobile, Data… ✓ EU & North America ✓ Telecom, Banking & Finance, Automotive NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 12
Our Story What Musala Soft is NOT ✓ We are not selling products ✓ We are not providing services around an open source platform / tool ✓ There is no single platform or tool we are significantly dependent on (be it open source or not) ✓ We are not a (really) big company NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 13
Our Story The Context The IDEA ✓ Smart Home & IoT ✓ Martin Momov ✓ Deutsche Telekom Smart Home Qivicon / Magenta Smart Home ✓ Investing in people www.openhab.org NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company www.eclipse.org/smarthome/ 14
Our Story What Musala Soft Is ✓ Software development services since 2000 ✓ 500+ experts in Bulgaria and Macedonia ✓ AI, Big Data Analytics, IoT, Smart Home, Industry 4.0, Cloud Integration & API Mgmt. ✓ Java, .NET, Front-end, Mobile, Data… ✓ EU & North America ✓ Telecom, Banking & Finance, Automotive NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 15
Our Story Alignment with Strategic Priorities …and in addition: ✓ Software development services since 2000 ✓ Big & active project ✓ 500+ experts in Bulgaria and Macedonia ✓ Tech. area (OSGi) ✓ AI, Big Data Analytics, IoT, Smart Home, ✓ Training new people: Industry 4.0, Cloud Integration & API Mgmt. ✓ Java, .NET, Front-end, Mobile, Data… ✓ EU & North America ▪ not experienced ▪ not exp. in the area ✓ Telecom, Banking & Finance, Automotive NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 16
Our Story Convincing our CEO to invest in the initiative ✓ Aligned with our strategic direction – specifically:
Our Story Convincing our CEO to invest in the initiative ✓ We’ll start small – 2 people initially – mostly with less experienced colleagues ✓ We want to give this a try – with a 6-month test phase – and we’ll monitor results regularly ✓ It will help a lot with employer branding and positioning ✓ It will be an enabler for new business – both for new clients and within existing ones NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 18
About the Project www.openhab.org NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company www.eclipse.org/smarthome/ 19
OpenHAB ✓ Home Automation – free open source software ✓ One of the most popular open source solutions for Smart Home www.openhab.org ✓ Vendor and technology agnostic ✓ Community – 16 500 registered users, 1.5 mil. pageviews / month ✓ myopenHAB Service – 20 000 registered users NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 20
OpenHAB Foundation ✓ Founded in 2016 ✓ Individual members, 11 companies, 1 university and 1 research center www.openhabfoundation.org ✓ Focus on advancing: ▪ Free Open Source Software ▪ Smart Home ▪ openHAB NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 21
OpenHAB – Innovation & Science ✓ Widely used for research by academics ▪ Research Projects ▪ Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD Theses ▪ Research and Scientific Articles, Conference Papers ✓ Various topics of research: ▪ Home Automation ▪ Smart City, Smart Car, Smart Electricity Grid, Smart Healthcare ▪ …and even Forensics NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 22
Eclipse SmartHome ✓ A flexible open source framework for the Smart Home ✓ Representation and lifecycle management of www.eclipse.org/smarthome/ IoT devices and services ✓ Designed to run on embedded devices (Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, Intel Edison) ✓ Widely adopted by the community ✓ Used by Deutsche Telekom, Huawei, Mozilla NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 23
Eclipse Foundation ✓ Founded in 2004 – fostering Open Innovation ✓ Build, enable and support open source communities ✓ Business-friendly ecosystem, extensible platforms ✓ 275+ company members, 10 project workgroups ✓ 360+ projects, 1 550+ developers/committers ✓ 195 mil. lines of code, 50+ events NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company www.eclipse.org 24
What did we do after we got the “go”? NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 25
The Team – Timeline April, 2016 – 1 Dev (full-time), 1 Senior Dev (mentor, part-time): June, 2016 – 3 Devs (full-time), 1 Senior Dev (mentor, part-time): July, 2016 till 2018 – 3 to 5 Devs (full-time), 1 Senior Dev (mentor, part-time) Process – Scrum team with issue tracking, code reviews, pair programming NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 26
The Team NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 27
Win-Win-Win? So – is the initiative really a win-win-win? …for: ▪ the Community & the Project ▪ the Team ▪ the Company NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 28
Impact on the Community & the Project ▪ Static Code Analysis tool ▪ “forgotten tasks” (waiting for years) – e.g. UI issues, annoying bugs that everybody just handled with workarounds ▪ tasks “no one felt like doing” – e.g. migration to Jetty, 1-month work ▪ service & device integrations – e.g. RSS feed binding, Energenie Mi|Home ▪ expanding Unit Tests coverage ▪ extending and keeping up-to-date Documentation and Tutorials NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 29
Impact on the Community & the Project NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 30
Impact on the Community & the Project NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 31
Impact on the Community & the Project NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 32
Impact on the Community & the Project NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 33
Impact on the Community & the Project ✓ 100+ merged PRs for the Static Analysis Tool ✓ 16 merged PRs in openHAB Docs ✓ 75 merged PRs in openHAB Addons ✓ 70 merged PRs in Eclipse SmartHome ✓ 15+ bugs found & reported NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 34
Impact on the Community & the Project NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 35
Impact on the Community & the Project NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 36
Win-Win-Win? So – is the initiative really a win-win-win? …for: ▪ the Community & the Project ▪ the Team ▪ the Company NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 37
The Team (and Alumni) Svilen Lyubomir Tanya Kristina Velin Dimitar Alumni: Erdoan Mihaela Alexander Petar NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company Elena Kiril Miroslav 38
The Team – How Do They Feel? Q: How do you feel about being part of the Open Source Team? Amazing experience and big chance for me to grow as a programmer Very interesting, dynamic, competitive, hard and inspiring! The Open Source team was the best place for an embarrassed junior like me. I was coming to the office really motivated each day! My code was reviewed by professionals from all over the world and I learned a lot from them. NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 39
The Team – How Do They Feel? Q: The most useful skills you’ve gained in the Open Source Team? I’ve broadened the scope of my skills a lot by learning new concepts and technologies. I’ve learned to write clean and high quality code. I’ve learned to face the big projects without fear. I’ve learned to cut the complex tasks into solvable pieces. I’ve learned to test my code. NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 40
The Team – How Do They Feel? Q: What was the most exciting part of you working in the project? The most amazing thing was to touch some real devices and integrated them into an open source project! I appreciate the most that I became part of the huge openHAB community. I had the chance to meet a lot of new people and to learn a lot! NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 41
Win-Win-Win? So – is the initiative really a win-win-win? …for: ▪ the Community & the Project ▪ the Team ▪ the Company NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 42
The Company What are the results so far? ✓ Professional development of people ▪ full success – proven quick growth in terms of technology skills, professional attitude to quality, process, communication skills, distributed team work, etc. ✓ Employer brand and image ▪ extended external exposure via conferences and events ▪ the initiative is very much appreciated internally ▪ highly motivated team members NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 43
The Company What are the results so far? ✓ Business (opportunities) ▪ 2 direct opportunities from new clients, 1 contracted ▪ 4 indirect project opportunities from new clients, 2 contracted ▪ Great appreciation for the initiative by existing customers ▪ Broadened expertise and capacity in the strategic area (IoT, Smart Home) ▪ Extended exposure, business development and networking opportunities NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 44
Win-Win-Win? So – is it really a win-win-win? …for: ▪ the Community & the Project ▪ the Team ▪ the Company NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 45
Plan 1. Motivation – why discuss this? 2. Our story 3. How to try this in your company? NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 46
How to try this with your company? STRATEGY ✓ Put yourself in the shoes of the company management ✓ Come up with an Open Source initiative that makes sense in the long-term for the company ✓ Make sure the initiative is aligned with as many as possible from the strategic company goals ✓ Try to align the initiative with the goals of HR/Talent Development, Sales, Ops/Delivery and PR NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 47
How to try this with your company? STRATEGY ✓ Start small (and as inexpensive as possible) ✓ Don’t even start “officially” – aim for a test / trial initiative – for 3 or 6 months for example ✓ Measure, report and discuss progress – regularly, strictly and transparently ✓ Treat the initiative as long-term from Day 1 – and manage it as such NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 48
How to try this with your company? PLAN ✓ Do your analysis based on the strategic points – and come up with a rough initial idea ✓ Research and find 2-3 Open Source Projects that would be good candidates ✓ Talk to HR/Talent Development, Sales, Ops/Delivery and PR – get their feedback and advice NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 49
How to try this with your company? PLAN ✓ Follow-up on feedback, do additional research, and come up with 1 or 2 specific ideas for open source project candidates ✓ Describe them – in short but clearly – and do not exaggerate: ▪ address all points related to alignment with strategic goals ▪ expected direct and indirect benefits in different areas ▪ expected costs / investment NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 50
How to try this with your company? PLAN ✓ Create an initial plan for kicking off a test phase ✓ Approach the company management – pitch the idea and request their feedback and advice ✓ Don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t get approved – that’s rather normal : ) ✓ Follow-up, refine and improve the plan – always having in mind the bigger picture and the company goals NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 51
How to try this with your company? PLAN ✓ Have a project champion ✓ Do your best for the test phase to be a success ✓ Make sure you work hard on the side project tasks too – work with non- IT colleagues to maximize company benefits from the project ✓ Regularly communicate internally and externally all newsworthy stories ✓ Regularly track project spend and outcomes – and report to decision makers and consult with them NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 52
What’s next? NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 53
Thank you for your attention! IANCHO DIMITROV iancho.d @ gmail . com LinkedIn.com/in/iancho NIDC Belfast 2019 – Against All Odds: A Full-time Open Source Team in Your Company 54
Yes, you know this happens in quite a few cases. Like in companies that open source and contribute a significant part of what they create for their own needs - think Google, Facebook, PayPal. Or like in companies with a primary focus on an open source product as Mozilla for example. Or like in companies that make heavy use of a specific open source platform or tool - and decide to give back through contributing to its development. Or like in working on academic projects funded by public money where the outcome is open sourced. But…
But what if the company you work for doesn’t fit in any of these open source friendly profiles?
Join me for a talk where I’ll share our first-hand experience on how we managed to achieve this - against all odds - and we hope to convince you to try our approach for making a viable case your company would be willing to invest in.
I will tell you the story of how we established and maintain a full-time software development team contributing to openHAB and Eclipse SmartHome projects - and how we made it in a win-win-win scenario (for the company, the team members and the community). And this is without our company having any “need” to do it, nor hardly any direct or indirect interest in making use of the results of the team work or the platforms themselves.
Here’s what was said about this presentation on social media.
for free. You
can too.