Cloud Native Computing Foundation Contributor Strategy Special Interest Group, 8 Dec 2020

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From YouTube: CNCF Contributor Strategy Contributor Growth WG 2020-12-08

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CNCF Contributor Strategy Contributor Growth WG 2020-12-08

A

Hello, let me start my video up here here we go hi there, hi.

B

A

I'm doing okayish, let me I need to hurry up and get an agenda together for us. I am filling in for carolyn today, who is vacationing envious.

C

She know we're fun, do you know or I don't I think, staycation. Oh.

B

Okay, well yeah. I guess that's the only option, the only safe option, I'd say right.

B

B

Let's see, I don't think I've met scott before, but since I'm kind of.

D

B

I don't know if you're new, too or no.

D

I'm I'm new as well. I'm I'll introduce myself scott colton. I work at microsoft. um I run the clutter. I sorry for containers um and I went with uh karen and she was like you definitely need should be involved in this. So uh today is my first day.

C

Welcome welcome.

D

Sorry I was having a couple of.

E

D

Issues at the beginning that I couldn't get my audio and things working.

B

That's cool yeah, I'm you wish so I've been here for a couple. So that's why I've never sure, because I know there's sometimes people skip and I was like. Okay, I don't know it's like, but yeah, I'm uh with buoyant by the way. So the company behind linker d.

A

So right now I've got.

A

The agenda and today what is today december 8th already what I know sorry.

A

This is the for actually the first time I've written the date today for some reason. So that's why I was like wait. I've been working for a while today. Why do I just know this.

B

All right, you know the good news, though it means that 2020 is almost over.

B

Isn't that, like awesome,.

C

B

It's like I'm, like I've, never felt like this about a year, but this is like. I want this to be over.

A

And then hold on contributor ladder, talk about that talk about contributor uh framework or contributor growth framework and then well, I'm looking at the last agenda uh recruiting playbook in uh onboarding experience.

A

All right, so scott, thank you for coming to our show here, karen hello, catherine, hello. Let's start this, this is being recorded. It will be posted on cncf's youtube, so everybody be kind to each other. It is only four of us so feel free to just interject um and that's it and then outside of contributor ladder and then contributor growth framework and then we'll I'll also just do a little tab for uh recruiting playbook anything else. uh Anyone have any other agenda items that they wanted to bring up today outside a general discussion.

A

Okay, so um let's see katherine, why don't we start with you? Then uh you want to tell us a little bit about the contributor growth framework. Maybe catch scott up too, since that's new uh and tell us what's going on.

B

um Yeah, let me.

A

Where is the tab so.

B

One of the things or the reason um we kind of oh looking for the: where is it? Okay, it doesn't matter. I headed over. uh So one of the things that we from linker d were hoping to get out of. It is kind of um understanding or creating like processes that can help contributors.

B

You know, um contribute more code or participate in different forms uh like there's also like non-code contributions, which are important right, like helping on snack and so on, and uh during our first meeting um the big feedback was like hey all your struggles are actually everyone's struggles, like everyone is having exactly those issues asking exactly those questions and then so after the meeting I was like well, if we need to know this like this could be like a little project right, like creating a framework for different companies uh like four different projects that are like from the beginning, like from being very small, to growing like what are the different best practices that other more mature companies have done, how um yeah?

B

How? How are they really kind of helping uh people go through that process and incentivize them to be more active?

B

um And so, interestingly, uh that all ties into what well, not interestingly, because the name of this group- actually it says it all right but like there- are like different initiatives like the um recruitment playbook that um hi charles, that paris is working on and karen is working on the latter and I think the way I see it is like like what I was envisioning is a little bit broader and then, but it ties in directly like so, but I'm sure there are a lot of different resources, like the latter, like the recruitment playbook that are more detailed, that kind of plug in to that right.

B

It's like okay, they're, more um concrete, um and so I've been interviewing different. Well, I've interviewed two people so far so paris and another person today and I'm trying to create that and that's what I wanted to see because I have this new, I probably closed it already.

B

So basically it starts with. How do you motivate so? The first step is like. Basically, how do you motivate contributors uh users to contribute? So that's the first step right like and then the next step is like. How do you uh help them through the process through the pr submission process to make them to set them up for success? And then how do you and the next step is like?

B

How do you um like motivate them to or like make sure they continue contributing and motivate them um to go up the ladder right um and then the last part is like: how do you incentivize people to contribute more than just code or like not yeah, not more like some people may just want to contribute different things so um yeah, so those are kind of like the different parts and what I'm doing now is kind of interviewing people and trying to gather information and then like uh putting it into a document, and that would then point to these different other um um documents that paris and karen are working on.

B

Basically, so that's how I, but it's very early stage.

D

Can I just drop in here? I think this is the reason why karen asked me to join. Is I'm actually working on a twitch stream to do exactly that, so you get um someone from a cncf project and work with developers and show them how to contribute.

B

Yeah well yeah, that's um you're kind of you're. Still there.

D

At the moment, I've owned only done sorry, I'm my assume is freezing up, so I'm not quite sure what's happening, but um at the moment I've done the with jeremy rickard, and that was obviously on the release thing for kubernetes. um But I'm super interested to get all seen there ready to get on board and.

D

About how they can work um with developers to develop the board and sort of have like a like a coding example and some things that they can work on to start getting more people contributing.

B

Yeah um like if you're interested, what we can do is maybe set up like a separate meeting. I can show you what we have so far and if you want to kind of help on that front, um that would be awesome.

B

And I think now he's frozen.

B

Okay, we lost yeah.

D

I'm having some issues with doing my thing.

C

A

C

huh I was suggesting that scott rejoined the call, maybe.

D

Okay, yeah I'll just rejoin.

B

Yeah, but in general paris, what I just wanted to kind of you know say like where we are at and it's very at the beginning, it's kind of like um so I I think it's going well and I I'm I'm. Each conversation is kind of useful and the interesting thing is um that the feedback is um positive to you. So um today I met with carlissia and she was like. Oh, I want to know this and I kind of gave away some of the things that you kind of mentioned and she was like.

B

Oh my god, I have to do notes here. So it's like even for someone working in a big company like vmware, she was like really like oh yeah. This is like we can use it too. So it's good um feedback. So far.

B

A

All right and then anybody else have any questions for contributor growth framework, all right and then karen, I think the last agenda item we have for contributor ladder is just to get it approved by saad and met who are our toc representatives and then they take it and so that we can graduate it. That is that correct.

C

Because I was decided on, I think, on the last call: yeah, okay,.

A

I think it was like, if you were, if you were okay with how it was, we will wrap in our toc folks.

C

Okay, um well, so I I brought it up for the first time during the call on thursday. So I don't know if everyone else is on the call. um I'm gonna drop a link to the contributor ladder template that I made, and so, if anyone has any suggestions, um maybe let's wrap it up by friday. End of the.

C

Week, do I need to do anything or like who brings it to them.

A

I will I mean well me or josh or somebody because we're bringing some other templates to them as well, okay um and then so. We'll do a final call for comments on the mailing list. Maybe today, um scott and matt final call for comments.

C

And just now, remembering did you say something about like having a section at the bottom, with the resources that we referenced.

A

Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah. That would be great.

C

A

Like like the raw like the raw resources, pretty much like you know, if there's like, uh like the kubernetes community, one and and then like the porter one and stuff like that,.

B

A

All right cool all right and then so for those who are new to the call and are like what the heck did, they just say: um karen did a contributor ladder for us and collaborated with a couple other folks, and now we are about to graduate that out of a draft state. So this is sort of the last call for comments. So if you have any comments for that, karen is dropping the link into the chat here and I'm going to put it right on the agenda as well.

A

So that is the last call for comments, and then we will invite our toc. We have toc liaisons for each sig under cncf and we'll invite them to review our templates and guidance so that we can get the official stamp of approval for guidance all right.

A

Any questions for karen.

E

B

E

B

Great, I just wanted to say that we found it very useful and great. So thanks for putting all the work in that karen.

C

Hey cool yeah, I'm hoping he uses myself for some of my own projects.

B

So I was invested. Well, that's all the idea. It's the same. You know like we're doing it because we need it and then like, but we just notice it's not only us like there's a whole community on it. So it's like that's the goal right.

A

All right and then josh did you have something for the crew. Are you just hanging out.

E

Just dialing in I did not have anything for the agenda, um although I am very happy to see the contributor letter documentation, which is awesome.

A

All right and then we are welcoming even more comments for the recruiting, playbook we're also welcoming collaborators. The link is inside of the agenda for that I do have tons of um there's already comments and things to add, etc. So we are still in a very much draft state there.

A

Please get the word out to other folks in your projects as well, if they're interested or if they know something, that's really worked for them or if they really know something that didn't work for them.

A

Whatever get the word out, this is the how to recruit, and what I mean by that also is like outreach programs uh issue and pr uh triage strategies, because obviously people are already on github, so how to you? How do you lure them in uh with that kind of a strategy approach, etc?

A

um I will share that link, also in chat, as well as the agenda.

A

So, like catherine mentioned, this will be part of that framework.

A

Questions concerns comments about the recruiting playbook. I mean we're still so early in stages.

C

Is this part of the like set of templates or like set of talks? You're gonna, try and get approved this week? No.

A

No, this one's still no we're still far out, I mean not far, but we're still I'm not pushing this one. No.

C

A

A

Like in the back of my head, I'm like say yes, I'm like.

A

Yeah, so we still have some time for that and, like I said, call for participation for those who would like to collaborate all right and then the last item that I have until and then we can open up for open discussion. Well, this kind of is honestly. This is sort of like open discussion. I I stood on a platform in governance. I think charles already heard this earlier, um but one of the things that uh here I'm actually gonna copy the issue.

A

One of the things that I've done thoroughly this year is read nadia's book twice and nadia's book is the working in public how to maintain uh open source projects and like how how the whole thing works, and it's beautiful and the thing that really came to me uh while reading it is a lot of the problems that we have today.

A

She kind of not necessarily solved by any means, but she did hold on uh cher.

A

She did um make it make sense so in the book and if, if you haven't read it I'll, just like edit is a very tldr, but in the book she goes on to sort of create classification systems for projects, because she believes that a lot of the times maintainers are kind of comparing themselves from like apples to you know, trees uh and not necessarily in the same thing, so they think or fork. You know some type of community operation or procedure, thinking that that's going to go for them when it really doesn't.

A

So I'm trying to think in that way too, and how can we create community taxonomies that make sense for cncf projects, because you hear a lot of the you know both subjective and objective comments about like what is open source and what is a project for cncf and what is a graduated project for cncf, and we have a bunch of graduation requirements now, but um a lot of times we'll hear like well, you know not. Every project is kubernetes. So therefore not every project needs to run like kubernetes.

A

So this just sort of a discussion that I wanted to bring up today.

A

It does sort of hit on a little bit of governance, but it also hits on a lot of contributor growth, because I think that a lot of what we are prescribing to people and telling them how they can do a thing is really all it's really based off of um like what they want out of their project and what they want their project to be so, for instance, in the case of you know the classification system that nadia pushed through she says that projects all fall under these four buckets one's federation, one's a stadium, one's a a a club and then the other one's a toy.

A

So you can imagine the toys are like people's pet, open source projects and things like that. So toys probably wouldn't be acceptable projects for cncf right or maybe they would only be acceptable projects for sandbox.

A

So I'm I'm trying to think of how to tie this also into badging uh and elevate badging and like read me, badging and like um community repo badging into something that's a little bit more modern.

A

That can bubble up this information more than just like the hairs, the hearsay that comes around and like the twitter and the tweets and and whatever, and we can actually classify projects on what they are and then provide classification definitions and so, for instance, in the case of those four buckets that nadia used kubernetes would be a federation and we would be probably a federation steering, for instance, um so that's sort of a long winded rant for where I was kind of going with.

A

I would love to kick up the badge, the badging process, um so if anybody would love to help with this or if you feel like I've hit any notes that um you know you care about, I would love to work with you on this too, because, like for instance, I think this could really play into like the contributor growth framework, because we're kind of trying to give um you know examples and guidance for projects. But in the case of, for instance, link rd like maybe you don't need a hundred maintainers right.

A

Maybe you don't need that?

A

Maybe you just need 50 maintainers that stick around and that you have constant, like you know, maybe um term limits and stuff like that, like that's just like an example, but we could get that out of um coming up with like project types and then like subtypes kind of like you know, birds um have been giving that example. Lately, catherine, you look like you're thinking. What are you thinking.

B

No, I think it's it's. It sounds interesting and, as I said like, I'm, I'm super willing to help on these projects. I think probably I would want to get the other one a little bit more further along not to work on several things. At the same time, just I don't know, I'm not afraid to get distracted. You know sidetracked but like in general, I think this is all you know it's at the end.

B

It's like all part of one thing so looking at different aspects, but it's all about you know, making an open source project successful and have a thriving contributor community right. So right, yeah.

A

Yeah- and it's just like you know, I I feel bad for some projects that kind of feel like they get lumped in with kubernetes when that's not necessarily like how they operate, um and they don't have to either kind of thing. So it just goes back to this age-old debate of a what's open source and b, what's an appropriate project for cncf.

A

So that's why I was trying to get on the wavelength. Sorry, you heard I had to hear that twice charles and josh, for that matter,.

A

Oh you're, a mute charles if you're, if you're talking to me, don't worry, I talk to my monitor all the time and people are like you talking to me. I'm like no, thank goodness like.

F

I have to unplug and replug my headphones every once in a while. um No, I think it's I think it's good. I'm super excited to get the book from you. I want to learn about it, some more as well like. I said this is uh something that katherine and I have been spending time on and uh I've been reading through other books as well.

F

So I am curious to like I'm in that process of like how much information can I sponge together, like just absorb, and then how can we apply that to this working group as a broader approach and then the linker d project, specifically.

A

All right, well, I'm going to continue to like make some inroads here, um aka make. This makes more sense. Like I said this has just been in, like my notes and I'm just tired of having half fake notes, so I just want to elevate stuff any other. Anybody have any like project like so I know, link or d folks are on the line, any projects that have questions or you want to talk about anything or um anybody wanted like catherine, do you want to ask your live questions?

A

We still have time or we can give you all time back, because we've officially hit the agenda.

C

Yeah, I think that's a question.

C

Go ahead. First,.

B

I was going to say that I'm actually fine. I think that, like the process that um was suggested before, like I don't feel like I'm ready to share too much right now, so that's kind of still kind of so we can do that, maybe at a different time when we have when it's further along. There is time.

C

And then, karen that you're on the hook now- okay- um I don't know if this is the right form to ask this question or if these are resources already to listen. I just haven't found them, um but um so, as some of you know, I'm the community manager for home and we are like cncs cncf- asked if we wanted to basically do a contributor summit of our own for help um sometime next year, and I was wondering if there's like a framework for how kubernetes does theirs document it anywhere.

A

Yes, very much documented inside of the community repo.

C

um Is that something we want to elevate to the cncf level like within this event,.

A

uh Yes, yeah, but I mean my only problem with that is that we're gonna have 70 contributor summits. So this is why I've been advocating for us to have like mega contributor summits so that we don't have to have 70 contributor summits yeah, um but yeah. No, I mean I can elevate any yeah. We can elevate any of that guidance in into here um for sure, oh also. Actually, that reminds me hold on catherine and charles. I was like my thought there point of contact if you want to help all right.

A

The next thing was um uh not that not that either I'm just I'm taking you all on a ride with me through my github tabs, all right this one. So uh in the in slack right now, carolyn did the um she uh netlified. I made that a verb now netlified the the site that she created for us, so this will be housed on some kind of contributors.cncf.io site.

A

um It's going to host some kind that, like this, is sort of a just I'm putting this really quick together, because we've had a couple issues about getting a contributor site and when I say contributor site I mean cncf contributor site together, so that maintainers can have a place to have like info bubbled up uh contributors can have a place to have info bubbled up. So if you're in our slack channel, do a couple clicks I'll get that right now and then you can see the preview.

A

So if you all have any ideas or anything that is not listed here, that you feel like the the site would benefit, I will be recruiting some more folks I'll, be recruiting some more folks to help with the site. um So that's why I'm getting sort of like a punch list together of stuff we want so that we can recruit some more contributors for it but yeah. This is it so, like I said, comments are welcome, so we've got the I'm a maintainer, I'm a contributor.

A

And then about which is like about us at a meta level,.

A

And then we'll also have.

A

A maintainers circle page this will you know where, where we'll all converse and hang out um when we're up and running there,.

A

But, oh now I can't find the dang here it is yep, so I'm about to set this issue so yeah, like, I said, feel free to add anything that you would like um and but like that. This will ultimately wear all those templates and things that we're doing will bubble up too. Obviously, the repo will still be there for folks to fork it, but it'll just have a little bit better information discovery.

A

So that's really it for us today, though, unless y'all have any other discussion topics, questions, let me actually put on the agenda. The the contributor summit stuff put on oops I'll. Do the tab again, summit guidance.

E

A

Otherwise we got time back, I mean I can hang out, that's what I'm trying to tell you.

B

Well, I mean like sometimes we're just more efficient. I guess right.

C

um Okay, let's see all right.

B

That's it thanks. Everyone.

A

Bye thanks so much for your work, y'all and scott. Welcome to the show.

D

Thank you. I just like to say I put my hand up to help on the framework the contributor framework, so um yeah. I don't know where to start to help, but I I'll.

B

Ping you on slack and then we can yep.

D

Start working from there.

B

Yeah sounds good, perfect.

D

A

D

Thank you, bye.