Strategies for managing community open source maintainers

1. Maintaining
Maintainers
Managing Open Source
Maintainers in a World
of Business Priorities and
Community Demands
Maggie Pint
Senior Software Engineering Lead
Microsoft
magpint@microsoft.com @maggiepint

2. What is a maintainer?

3. “The GitHub Open Source Model”
“The Way the Kids Do It”
“Millennial Open Source”

4. A Personal Story

5. Wait… why is this hard?
Identity

7. You can’t compete with the open source community.
You can use it for a lot of good.
Business value arguments with open source maintainers go
very badly.

8. The Two Maintainer Archetypes
Hugger Expert

9. Both the
Hugger and the
Expert
 Highly Self-Motivated
 Energetic
 Passionate
 Easily Bored

10. The Hugger
 Motivated by Community and Collaboration
 Extroverted/Friendly/Chatty/Warm
 Solid developer
 But may not be a deep subject matter expert
 May make a good developer evangelist, PM, or engineering
manager
 Be cautious about hiring as an IC developer

11. The Expert
 Very deep understanding on a specific technical area
 Often the project’s author
 A high quality developer who can solve hard technical
problems in many areas
 Loves their community as much as the hugger – even if it isn’t
as obvious
 Makes a great technical leader (in their area of expertise or in
related areas)
 May not be a good choice for evangelism or management
roles

12. The Opportunist:
An Anti-Pattern
 Usually looks like a hugger at
first glance
 May have enough social media
followers to make marketing’s
eyes turn green
 Has lost sight of the reason we
do this

13. Hiring Maintainers
A Checklist of Considerations

14. For Hiring
Managers
 Be clear about exactly what work the person will do
 Scope to the next six months – aspirational plans do not
always come to fruition
 Feel out whether you have an expert or hugger. Is the role a
fit for that type?
 Pre-define the scope of evangelism/community work
 Best Practice: Write it in the offer letter!
 Ask yourself whether you can be flexible with the person
regarding the open source project. If for any reason you feel
you can’t be flexible – don’t hire.

15. For Programs
Offices
 Make sure there is policy in place that allows new hires to
continue contribution
 Check the CLAs on maintainer’s projects for compatibility
with company policy
 Educate HR and recruiting departments on open source IP

16. For Executives
 Orient yourself to the maintainer’s project and community –
you are sponsoring it
 Create a plan for broader engagement with the community
this maintainer is coming from
 This community is about to become YOUR COMPANY’s
biggest fanbase
 Consider how the maintainer can impact your internal
developer community

17. Introspect.
Don’t be afraid to no-hire.

18. The Day To Day
The Ongoing Grind is Always the Hardest Part

19. Fall Back to
Management
Best Practices
Works way better than you’d
think.

20. Microsoft
Leadership
Principles
Deliver Deliver Success
Generat Generate Energy
Create Create Clarity

21. The
Industry’s
Greatest
Myth

22. Setting Core
Priorities
 Agree upon clear core priorities that give the
maintainer ownership of a business space
 Include open source work in core priorities.
Ask about expected outcomes for the project
and community. Define them in core priorities
 Create a plan that includes measurable
outcomes for both the business and the open
source project
 Hold the maintainer to all goals (business and
open source)

23. Boredom is
your worst
enemy

24. Leveling
Up
Taking the maintainer
relationship from good to
unstoppable.

25. Direct
Managers
 Make the maintainer the owner of developer experience in
your code base
 Put the maintainer in mentorship positions that scale
beyond the team
 Young employees LOVE learning from people who have
open source work that they see and value

26. Programs
Offices
 Use the maintainer’s project relationship as an opportunity
to evaluate, document, and refine organizational
contribution policy
 Highlight the maintainer’s relationship with your company
and the community in case studies
 Share with TODO group!

27. Executives
 Use maintainers to scale open source ideals up through
your organization
 Empower maintainers to connect with communities, and
create communities that span both the inside and the
outside of your company
 Position maintainers to drive necessary change through the
standards process

28. Todd and
Maggie Cause
Mass
Collaboration
(An Experiment)

29. But also, awesome community work:
 Miguel De Icaza starting with Mono and bringing Xamarin to Microsoft
 Boucoup bringing Leo Balter from Qunit to advance Test262
 Magenic and Rocky Lhotka using CSLA to build out the Minneapolis dev community and
Magenic together

30. Remember – this will pay off.
Open source is love. Love is really flipping powerful.
Maggie Pint – Senior Software Eng. Lead – Microsoft – magpint@microsoft.com - @maggiepint