AsyncAPI AsyncAPI Conference 2021, 16 Nov 2021

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From YouTube: Contributor journey to become AsyncAPI TSC member - Lukasz Gornicki, Postman

Description

AsyncAPI Conference 2021 - Day 1
16th November 2021

Learn what are the steps to become a member of AsyncAPI Technical Steering Committee (TSC). How to start contributing, how to become a committer (maintainer) and what it actually means for you to be a TSC member.

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Hi folks, thanks for joining today, you're going to learn how, as a regular, asking api community member, you can become a technical stream committee. Member and what's the journey ahead of you.

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So I'm lukasz gornitsky, I'm a community guardian, so-called and also as an api maintainer, and I was involved in the process of figuring out what and how um to handle the uh the way we work at asking api initiative. So that's why I can share with you a bit of details, but just take it into account that like, if you don't want to discuss with me these topics later after the presentation in public here are my contact points. So if you're feeling comfortable talking in private, please do like.

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We always prefer public discussions, but um there might be situations where you prefer um to keep it for yourself. So um please feel free to use one of the contact points.

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So the plan for today is to first of all give you a highlight of why we actually have technical steering committee that it comes from a open governance model that we have here.

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I'm gonna also explain what are the like: typical paths that can lead you to become a technical steering committee. Member and last but not least, I'm gonna cover one of the most sophisticated. Maybe that's not the best word, um my personal favorite path to become a technical stream committee. Let's call it this way, so open governance.

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What is it what's the history? So if you don't know it yet I'd like to let you know that at the end of march this year, 2021 asking api initiative joined linux foundation.

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We've heard from many different areas of the project from big tech companies that for projects like this, it's important that it reaches a neutral ground where the ip of the project is in the ownership of the foundation and best way was to join linux foundation.

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And one of the points that um we had to fulfill to join linux foundation was to implement like to to provide in the project an open governance model that would assure that it's not a project that is controlled by a single person, but a group of of people like a community.

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So that's why, where we started finding uh researching uh what could be the best solution for us, so um we we came up with some principles and one of them, the main one was that we didn't want to have a founding members.

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uh We wanted to avoid approach that we could see in other projects where you set up a model governance model by um getting a funding members that helps you, of course, to get initial funding for the project, but in exchange the funding companies also get a seat in the technical steering committees we wanted to avoid it.

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We wanted to avoid it mainly because we wanted to make sure that um individual contributors are equal to sponsored contributors that you, if you don't have a company behind you that will bring in money to the table. You still can be the member of the technical steering committee.

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Now we also made sure that we want to make decisions in a synchronous way. So if you don't have dedicated people from some company to come to the meetings where decisions are being made, your individual contributor- you don't have so much time to the project, so we wanted to make sure that the process where we make decisions is not tied to the meetings. So you don't have to come to the meeting.

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To make a decision meeting is for the synchronous alignment on the topic, but for voting you have time voting discussions, decision making is asynchronous, and last but not least, we made sure the technical string committee list is is large. We have a large group of people that can make decisions so therefore to become a technical steering committee.

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Member- in short, you just have to become a committer in one of the repositories owned by asking api initiative, and um one important thing to remember about technical steering committee is that we wanted to have a kind of balance of force like uh make sure that um every single vote matters, which means like um that, if you have technical student committee members affiliated with the same company, uh you can have many. That's that's fine, but we wanted to make sure that um one company cannot overwhelm other voters.

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So um basically, the number of technical steering committee members that are affiliated with the same company cannot exceed exceed um one-fourth of the total number of the members as simple as that now yeah committer. I already used that word and um what's the difference with contributor, um and let me try to explain it to you with with some pictures. Okay, so let me search for something.

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Not this one, um that's definitely how not how it looks like I wish. There are projects that have so many committers, but but not not really um and we're more helpful. I think so this picture, that's not how committer and contributors work. This picture rather shows how the road construction looks like in poland. So, let's, let's try to find different image.

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Okay, so this picture is much more accurate, but it's not 100 reflecting how it looks because commuter and contributor it's more collaborative.

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You have equal powers, equal knowledge, equal engagement and more teamwork, let's say so: let's, let's search um further.

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Yeah this this one is perfect, so I say committer you're in the driving seat of the repo, but alone you're, not gonna, drive very far. You need a lot of contributors that will help some will be confused. Some will try to help, even though they don't think like they know what they're doing. But don't you worry.

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We accept here anyone like it's better for us to onboard every single contributor than try to fix every single thing or implement every single thing on our own.

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So even though, as a contributor you're not driving the car, but we're super happy to get you inside next to us.

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Now, what does it mean to be technical steering committee? What do you have to do.

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First of all regularly help the project simple, as that like, if you contribute a lot and you become a committer and therefore technical, steering committee member, it already means you're contributing just remember that you have to do it and continue doing it regularly in be involved in voting and other initiatives driven by the project.

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Now I think that it's important to explain now what is the difference between committer and maintainer, because these phrases are usually confused, so by definition, committer is a person that has rights to commit to the repo.

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So it's not 100 the same as a maintainer. From the definition point of view, maintainer does not necessarily have to commit to the repo as a maintainer, you can help rebel. You can review pull requests. You can review issues, you can promote the project, but still you don't have much opportunities to commit to the repo and therefore um get into a committer seat.

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So at the moment, technical steering committee by definition, enables commuters in the project. We don't have yet path for people that are super much involved in using api. They do not commit to a specific repo, but they helped the entire initiative.

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That was hard. That is hard to measure to identify to have clear rules how that would work.

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So um that's how we choose to work at the very beginning to have a clear rule to scale the list of technical string committee members.

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We are kind of sure and um and unaware that it's not necessarily the most friendly approach to community that long term. We definitely have to find a path for people that help the project a lot but cannot commit to the project.

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So um that's definitely something that we have to discuss long term and um and discuss to find a final find a better way.

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Now, at the moment we have 22 members in the technical steering committee. So, um as you know, we started the process in march. Basically it was end of march, so yeah april this year, so we grew pretty fast um and the number is growing so um you're. Most then welcome.

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Decisions as a temporary solution we choose um to to have them on google groups, because the most important was that voting and decisions making is transparent, and that was the easiest tool to use at some point of time, and actually that's the best moment now with 22 members is that we have to start thinking of on some better solution um how to organize voting, but for now that's how we that's, how we did it, but yeah. I think the most important is like.

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If you offer your help to the project you commit to some repo, then you're also involved in voting and you you have to engage to understand what you have to vote on. What do you get in return.

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One of the most important things, I think, is the exposure. So on asking api website, we've got a publicly available list of all the technical student committee members. So anybody who engage with the community we'll see your involvement.

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Now when you are being registered as tech and clustering committee member, we collect some information, not just social accounts, so people can figure out who you are, but you can also mark if you're available for hire or not that's, because we we love that we managed to set up an open, open governance model that um respects individual contributors, but also it doesn't mean we want to exploit people for for the free free labor.

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So um we encourage- and I think I mentioned it few times already publicly, but let me make it super clear. We encourage any company that would like to be present in technical steering committee that would like to have an employee that represents a company in technical steering committee to hire those that are already there available for hire.

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Don't try to find someone on the market, hire them, train them and spend months on investing in people to to get them in asking api. There are already great people in the project that you should definitely hire.

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Now, as an individual contributor, individual member, you don't necessarily look for job anand, for example. um He is contributing in his spare time, but he already has job and he's not looking for a new one, so what he gets in return um also some help. So, for example, me um as a member of the of the technical stream committee, I'm going to help adan to convince his employee to give him time that he could spend on the project and therefore then present what company he's working for.

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I will take my time to go with anand to meetings with his employer. Explain how open source is important, why it's important that they should be in the project and help negotiate like how much time they could get to work on the project in exchange?

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Why not I mean I can offer some time for some training about asking api some presentation- and I bet, if I'm going, to ask some other technical student committee members to help out as well.

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They will be keen to help so as an individual contributor that has employment feel free to to like connect with me and talk to me like and tell me like, uh I'm tsc member.

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I work for company xyz, but um I have to do my work after hours. Can you help and be sure I will and then, if already tst member works for some company and company is okay, that person contributes during the work hours, then the company gets exposure.

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It's clear how many people are in the project and how much a given company invests in the project, how important it is for them.

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So um I don't think that I have to explain that if company already has people in the project they're pretty aware of how they can present it to the public, show that they're, a a good tech company investing in open source.

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But yeah now, let's talk about all the roads that lead to rome, which means we're going to talk about how to get into tsc membership.

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So the one of the paths that you can take is, as a repository initiator what it means. Let's take a look on. Like example, michael davis from solas now he's a maintainer of few repos, but I will pick two as an example: javascript cloud stream template and python pathway template.

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These repos were created in async api organization on github, but they were purely initiated by his work. He did like majority of it wrote templates uh code generators from scratch. Basically, so he initiated projects and therefore, if he initiated those and maintained those automatically, he is a committer and therefore a technical steering. Committee member another example is jorge so jorge joined project um in his spare time. He created a cli um for validating, asking api documents.

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He joined our project, then we started talking and well. We already knew that we want to create cli, so he started in the project from scratch uh invested a lot of time into it and therefore like he became a committer um and um and the technical string committee member and last but not least, mache asking api react uh was created from scratch by him and the team where he worked at sap when it started.

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But it started here in asking api organization and he did like majority of the work as a maintainer and therefore, um even though after joining postman, he um he still maintains it uh commits to it and is a committer, which means he is a technical steering committee member, but there's a path that is also called repository. Donor.

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Yeah we couldn't figure out the best name for it. um So if you have better names, I'm all yours so yeah. Let's look on examples.

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Pavel um individual contributor, aside of asking api organization in github, he had his own project.

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That was, he was creating basically some tools for java and one of them was, for example, um a plugin for intellij and he started getting community for for the project, and many people started asking like would be nice if these projects would be published on intellij marketplace uh through official asking api account, etc, etc, and we started discussing and pavel said, like yeah, I mean if, if I can put the project just in asking apr or on github and then in exchange, we can then publish official um all his tools as tools as official tools.

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Then, let's, let's do it, so he basically donated the project moved the project to asking api. But of course he is still a committer in the repo he maintains the repo regularly and therefore he is a technical austrian committee member same case with emiliano. During his spare time he created a code generator for php.

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He came in and said like I can. I can donate it to the organization we didn't, have any php code generators, so yeah you're. Most welcome just comment.

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If you commit that, whoever will jump into the project will report issues, um you're gonna help, then yeah uh come on in you're, a committer and therefore a technical steering committee member.

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Yeah and my favorite path, repository contributor.

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So, for example, ludovic um several months ago- I don't even remember like it was seven, I think um ludovic came into the project, started, contributing to html template and then a lot to avro schema parser, and we noticed that, like um he's one of the main feature providers to the project- and um he knows it pretty well, he also uses avro and asking api in production.

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So the like he presented pretty well that he adds a value to the project. He knows how it looks like he uses it come on in as a committer man now he's a committer and technical string committee. Member anand. Again um we had a gold code generator in the past, but the previous maintainer left uh anand came in spent a lot of time. Trying to take over the old go generator then rewrote it from scratch, entirely spending a lot of hours on it.

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He presented a lot of knowledge about the generator about the existing tools, the spec and he wants to continue working on it. So yeah your committer and a technical string committee member jonas yeah he's a he's, a special kind. He contributes everywhere um but yeah when he started. He he obviously did not start um with his own project. He started learning project by contributing to existing ones, to parser to generator spend a lot of hours improving existing tools.

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Then he initiated, of course, some projects that he cares about now, but his main path to tsc was through a contribution to existing projects.

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Last but not least, dale great contributor to the project, but as a committer he he showed that he has a lot of knowledge about kafka and how it plays with using api.

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He worked a lot on reviews in different areas of the project and therefore he joined ludovic to to take care of the avro schema parser.

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So basically, the contributor path that I'm just talking to you about is when you don't start something new, don't just bring in your project, but you help out driving the existing ones.

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There are different options for contribution. It's not only code, it can be just issue reports back descriptions.

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Even though you might think it's not good yes in open source, when you don't have much opportunities to use the tools, every single bug report is a blessing then of course documentation. um Any ideas like helping the issues. If we struggle with some solution, help out, come in and and propose something help us with review of pull requests, um help to promote the project, write a blog post, come and help with designs, because we've got plenty of ui.

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Then, of course maintain the project regularly talk about the project on conferences.

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Give some code provide some good examples.

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Answer questions any issues, because there are plenty and triaging issues is hard takes time and last but not least, record videos, because visuals are also very good way of sharing the knowledge about the project.

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These are at the moment, most recommended and most noticeable ways. People contribute to the project, and we use here for for recognition a all contributor specification.

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And uh all those different options you can apply to already 58 repositories that we have in aseng api initiative organization.

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So uh there's a lot of good stuff, I'm pretty sure you can find something for you, so yeah start contributing and uh how to make first contribution. It's pretty easy. Let's see so we pick an issue right. You just go to one of the 58 repos go into issues pick one!

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Then you start working on it locally and then create a pull request.

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Then you get it merged. But of course you need to iterate through that process few times to to learn the project and demonstrate that you, you can become a committer right.

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Then you're invited to join the code owner as a code owner and the code owner it's a technical term in github, so there's a functionality that allows you to provide at the root of the project, a file called called code owners and in this code owner file you specify which parts of the project, or maybe entire project you own as a committer.

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And then automatically you become atsc member, I told you it's easy, but yeah. Let's go much more into details right so yeah how to pick an issue like. um Is it really that simple you just go to 58 repose one by one, all the issues.

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I'm pretty sure it's not I'm pretty sure it's difficult um and I believe that picking this first issue is hell most difficult stuff you could face. So um let me give you some tips how you can pick an issue.

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Yeah, that's that's the basic way, so you you, you pick the repo like, let's say, you're interested with writing in typescript and some particular technology whatever. So you go to this repo. That represents the a given tool and you try start triaging issues like go one by one understand what they're about and and and look for something that is interesting, for you also depends why you come to the project to contribute. Do you just want to learn anything or you have some specific mindset here?

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You can also join prs uh to review those um and learn like uh what parts of the project are involved in a in a given functionality in a given bug, fix and- and this way you can identify um in which parts of the project you'd like to engage.

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There's also a label called good first issue, we're not yet experts in using it.

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That's something that started few months ago. So far we were using it only for oktoberfest, but now um yeah. We remember that how important it is um to expose to community issues that are very well described and are easy enough to be first issues that um they could engage with.

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So um if you find some repo where github label, because it's default github label, good first issue is not used, there are other ways. So, of course you can join our slack. We have a dedicated channel where you can come in, say you want to contribute and we're gonna, we're gonna, tell you how and where we're gonna ask you some questions like if you wanna contribute. What's your area that you'd like to contribute um your knowledge, is it like more documentation or is it like pure coding like? Is it only java or something different?

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um If you don't have time and enough um yeah, basically enough time to to go through all the repo's and find stuff on your own? Don't worry we're gonna help you out now we also have a contributor. First live streams, so it's a meeting that is broadcasted to all our social media. It's live. You can join in the chat you can join, also live to to the current host and um ask questions about a specific project: how to contribute and yeah we're. Gonna definitely help you out. There.

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Now, one of the best ways to contribute code to start contributing to a specific project is to first start bringing in new missing tests to the project.

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So um in some of the projects we already regularly check the tests missing tests um in the project, so basically the test coverage. So um you should definitely try to to see if this test coverage is visible in the in the readme. If not, then, just on your own check how tests look in the given project and um if what parts of the code are not covered and then and please add those tests- um that's the best way to learn the code base through writing tests and there's also a sonor cloud used in this project.

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So all the all the repositories are scanned for some basic issues in the code that you basically don't see as a human.

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We run it on pr level to figure out issues, but there might be situations that, even after figuring out all the issues on the pr level, even after merging sonar cloud, does another scan and figures out. There are some more issues.

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So definitely um please go into sonar cloud and check if um given repo that you're inter interested with, has some issues that you could fix now once you identify the issue, time is to open up a request right, but yeah first things. First, first, once you fork your repo, because we all work on forks, even committers, you have to configure your fork, because if you aim to become a technical steering committee member, I already told you it's not going to be just one contribution.

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You need to learn a given project, so you have to properly configure your fork. So work is not such a pain, so you basically need to make your fork work like a upstream repo, that's pretty easy to handle. So later, I'm gonna talk about it. When I'm gonna talk to you about links that I want to share with you now work on the project locally.

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Please make sure that everything works run tests locally as well.

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And then yeah, once you open apr, it's pretty important that you get your pr title right. We use here a conventional comment, specification that will allows us to have automated releases. So here you have an example on the screen.

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Conventional comments basically means that title of prs and therefore the commit messages, because we use pr titles as commit messages when we squash and merge pr's, they have a prefix.

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So you can clearly see that, for example, the the first from the bottom was a fit merge, which means fit from the specification point of view that we released it like released a package as a feature which is a minor feature because there's no exclamation mark. So it wasn't a major now dogs or these are to explain that it's like something related purely to documentation or something more, but it's not triggering the release. So you have to take care of proper pr title and, as you can see here, if titles are nice and well descriptive,.

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It's pretty useful, I think when you take a look on the history.

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Now every pr is tested, but there are many other checks that run on the pr. Please always make sure that all of them are green, like, for example, tests that they're, not failing, because that will speed up things.

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If you make sure on your own that they're green, you don't have to involve committer to do it and he's time to do it. So always, please take it on you, make sure that everything is green and put the work on the committer. Only when a check that is read, you have no idea how to fix.

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Now there are drafts and official prs right so technically github allows you to create a a draft pr and draft. Pr is something that technically we configured to ignore, for example, for tests. So if you create a request- and you mark it as draft- we encourage you to do it, but do it only if you're basically not yet ready to give it for the review, because we're going to ignore draft brs we're not going to look at it. We don't get any alerts that there's a new pr if it's draft and it's not automatically tested.

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So please don't expect us to jump in into a given pr. But of course, if you're gonna ping us to have a look, we're gonna, do it.

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Now yeah get it merged, but how we get alerts we have slack channel dedicated, we look at it whenever there's a new request opened, so we're gonna have a look and we should notice that you opened a new pr.

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But sometimes you need to ping us like sergio. For example, you can't always wait forever. So if you see for after a few days that nobody interacted with your pr, especially that the tests are not running because github now blocks um automated run of prs, if it's your first contribution and and the ci doesn't run because of crypto world and the um wrong usage of cis by people that want to get some crypto, so um github does not run ci checks if you are first time contributor.

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um So if you see that there nobody triggered them, no committer triggered your tests or basically nobody comments on your pr for a few days.

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No bad intentions here we just have a lot of work. So please just just ping us for help.

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Now I told you about code owners already that we have for a given repo people described in the code owner's file, who's responsible for what in the project, and this person will be called by github by default, to review your pull request.

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The thing is just that we did not manage yet to roll out code owners to all the repos. So please have a look on the reviewers. If no reviewer is assigned, then it means nobody yet was pinged and it might take longer for someone to to notice your pr. So um if you find a repo where there are no code owners, please contribute them. Like start discussion in the repo ping, us that there's no such file ask who should be in the file and and open a request just help us out. Please.

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Now make sure all pr's checks are green again, I emphasize on it, but please this will speed up things.

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Otherwise, it really slows down, because if I, for example, go to apr, something is red, so I was already kind of ready to review your pr, but tests were failing, I'm just going to ping, you like fixed tests and again we'll jump to some other duties, and it will take time again until I will come back to your pr.

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So just for, for your sake like for for the speed of the pr. If you want to get it merged fast, please make sure that the quality of the pr is is is good.

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And then you have to iterate, I already mentioned like um one pr will not make you an expert in the project. If you want to learn the project well, you will have to iterate a few times pick some easy tasks at the beginning. Then some bug fixes and then this one then once you're sure about everything um pick up. Some existing issues about new features, have discussion, accept solution and and create pr.

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And then join us code owner now. Don't worry, committers will notice you if, if you're committed in the repo you simple requests who you interact with.

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You're gonna see that there's a a single committer, regularly pushing code and um and automatically committer will know. If, when is the right moment to to trust that, given person knows the project and and looks like want to regularly help, so you will be most probably invited by the committer.

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But we're all humans, we might overlook something we might just to be too busy. So if you know already that you've put a lot of love in the project or you did some pr's but you're not sure, if that's the right moment open up an issue, just openly talk to us, um no offense will be taken. It's actually gonna be understood.

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As a as a good signal about you open an issue demonstrate in the issue list all the pr's that you completed everything you know about the project and once you do it, the the committer will tell you if that's the right moment to join as committer or we'll just give you an advice like okay like please, maybe do one more future. uh So we know, um if all is good and then become a tsc member there's a spot waiting for you.

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So yeah there's a bunch of links that I did not have in the main presentation that you definitely have to look at as a candidate for technical steering. Committee first link is a charter that we officially signed with linux foundation that describes the open governance module. It's super boring because it's in legal language, but you still have to read it or trust us that we explain it well to you now. The next link is the google group where the decisions are being taken.

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Another link is a place for discussions about ideas. So if you want to take the path of a project initiator, um first discuss it with the community like what idea you have and if community is like thrilled with your idea and would like to see it in the in the async api organization.

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If we're gonna see that community is like super happy like come on in we're, gonna create repo for you and run it man.

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Now um next link is um it's a slide deck, so it's a template for all the presentations that you can do about asking api with async api brand. So um this slide deck that you can see with my presentation was created basing on on this default slide deck. So definitely if you want to make it easier for you to preach about asking api, please take it.

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The link to community repo labels, slash meeting, is a link to a place where you're gonna learn about all the meetings that are in the initiative like happening at the moment in a week or in two weeks and among them, you're gonna see those contributor first meetings, so if you want to join them and talk live with with me and other uh committers uh feel free to just jump in in the comments, let us know what you'd like to hear about in a given live stream um and yeah engage with us and last but not least, is the link to sonar cloud.

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So I already told you we scan projects so yeah go to solar cloud, there's a list of all the projects that we scan. All the issues.

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Don't look at conference website repo and the amount of issues. That's there the same with playground, um yeah long story, I'm super open to tell you more about it.

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Now more links, git workflow, there's an instruction how you should configure your fork. I highly recommend you don't try to find a different solution use ours because it already proved uh be good. Now you want to read more about conventional comments like the prefixes in the in the comment messages.

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That's another link that if you want to recognize contribution contributions in your projects the same way we do. We use all contributors. So read more about the spec with the next link, the tsc members list. There are two links: the first one tsc members json it's a technical file where we keep the names and all the references, but we nicely render displayed in on the website under the last link.

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So pretty much a lot, but it's worth it right.

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So thank you. Thank you. So much for um yeah giving me this opportunity to bore you about uh contributing to asking api but yeah. I really count. I really count on you that I did not scare you. I actually encouraged you to join asking api technical string committee member, take those challenges, path and yeah, see in the group of dsc members.