Anatomy of a FOSS Project

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# CSCI-UA 480.10: OSSD
## Open Source Software Development

## Anatomy of a FOSS Project

.author[
Instructor: Joanna Klukowska

]

.license[
Unless noted otherwise all content is released under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
]

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## 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 trackers 
	- communication channels

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## Community and Its Structure: The Onion Model

.left-column2-large[
.center[
<img src="img/onion_model.png" width="500px"/>
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.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)
]
]

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## 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

]
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__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

]

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## Important Files

- README

- LICENSE (and/or COPYING)

- CONTRIBUTING

- Code of Conduct

- Styleguides

- Other
  - INSTALL / INSTALLATION
  - CHANGES / CHANGELOG
  - AUTHORS

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## Tools: Issue Tracking

issue tracking = bug tracking = ticketing system

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

- what are _issues_?
  - 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?
  - first 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

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## 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.

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## 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

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