Node.js Node.js Interactive North America 2016, 15 Dec 2016

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From YouTube: KEYNOTE: Contributing to Node.js: Coding Not Required by William Kapke, Kap Co, LLC

Description

KEYNOTE: Contributing to Node.js: Coding Not Required - William Kapke, Kap Co, LLC

What newcomers often don't realize is that there are many ways to contribute to Node.js - and often don't even require you to know how to code! But what? And where? Node.js has an Open Governance policy so there are many Working Groups with GitHub repositories contributing meeting minutes, videos, and hosting great discussions in their issue trackers. Finding the right place to contribute, however, is (currently) a bit difficult. In this talk, I will give a tour of The Node.js Foundation Committees, Working Groups, Github repositories, explain why they exist, and how you can get involved.

To learn more about how to become a Member:
https://github.com/nodejs/membership

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Hey, okay. I'm going to talk about contributing to node.js ... and if you've ever heard a talk about.

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Contributing to node.js, there are a bunch of them out there.

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I'm going to assure you that this is nothing like that.

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There's a collaborator summit ... a code and learned that a lot of you signed.

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Up for and that's kind of more on that end of getting.

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Into node core and contributing code, there.

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So,, I won't have any coding..

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I actually, personally,, try not to contribute to node core.

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I do contribute to node.js--, but in different ways.

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So here's the deal-- in past years, it was pretty hard to get started.

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With contributing to node.

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the custodians kept, the projects-- kept the project -- pretty small.

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To a small group of contributors.

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I had tried at the time to contribute the back then.

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I presented pull requests and issues.

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Often, spending hours putting them together just have them close in a day or even minutes.,.

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Sometimes I won't even get a response!, it wasn't very welcoming., but then io.js just came around.

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And, along with many es6 goodies something, in my opinion,, more valuable was.

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Pulled in: an open governance model.

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And the requirement that everything must be done in the open.

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They used github for a lot of this, but they filled in a major missing piece by.

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Hosting live meetings, ...and even allowed q&a... live!.

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...And anyone was able to ask questions to the core team.

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-- and then they, followed up with trying to.

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Put a honest effort in to answering those questions.

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This... this... was the node community. *I* was looking for!.

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But then the merge back with node.js came along.

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... and I was not thrilled., the meetings stopped.

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communication became scattered. and I couldn't tell what was going on.

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I disconnected.

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I was little irritated. so.. heh.

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Then just shy of one year ago I started,, I started getting spammed with youtube notifications.

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Node.Js just uploaded a video.

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... node.js, just uploaded a video. one after, another after another. finally,, I'm like "okay,, what's going on over there?", so I go to youtube and I find all these videos from this event. Called..

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~Nooode iiiinteractive...?

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hah. never heard of it!, so I go there... and one in particular caught my eye--.

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It was actually the very first one posted: "convergence: evolving node.js, with open governance and an open community" by james snell.

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I'm like... okaaaay..., oh really?, here here, is..., going on about how important open governance is.

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... you know-- that thing I saw disappear?.

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So I checked out more and this theme was used across many of the.

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Videos that I saw. and,, here's just a little bit of danese...

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Danese ... and again we're mostly interested in transparency.

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We're going to ask you to hold us accountable for that.

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Danese ..., if you can't find out what how it's happening, ask us.

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Danese, you should be able to find our minutes from our board. Meetings.

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You should be able to find the statement about where the next board meeting is.

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Happening there they happen virtually, so you can join too.

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You should be able to find pretty much everything and, if you can't...

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You should definitely let us know, because transparency is one of the secret.

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Sauces of open source- and we have to work hard to maintain that transparency.

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William, oh really??,.

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So where did my meetings go? Then?.

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... soundcloud, it turns out, they stopped using youtube and they went to soundcloud.

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I--, I just didn't get the memo.

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But there was a new problem for me.

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all of that-- that she just said about the minutes,.

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The open board meetings, the agendas all being online.

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..., that was not true.

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They were nowhere to be found., they were not online., the meetings were not broadcast. and there certainly was not a dial-in for people.

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Alright, so let's reach out-- reach out, like she said!.

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So I sent a twitter message.

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she's like contact me on twitter., so I contacted her on twitter... uughh, no response.

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I also went and opened up a bunch of issues on github.

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This is only a partial, list! ..., and this is the tsc repo only.

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..., but what about those board minutes??

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I posted a few weeks. Later... and nothing.

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... till 2 days, later!.

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"Hey michael, can you give some pointers?".

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... but then silence again.. I didn't hear back.

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Let's have faith! you know--, let's try again.

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I'm still looking for those minutes.

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again: "where. Are they at...?".

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And then-- finally-- boom!

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mikeal sent a text. Back: "I'll send them when I land in paris.".

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A little later that day,, the email came in, with the minutes attached..

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So you know what this means: now?.

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The ball is in my court!

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I-- I--. I have the solution to the problem.

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It wasn't that *I* didn't have the minutes....

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It was that they were not published, online!

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so, immediately,, I open a pr. It was reviewed-- and merged-- in minutes.

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So why?, why go to all this trouble? .. for board minutes?.

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Rod, I think we, in general, are doing pretty terrible job of.

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Bringing outsiders along on the same journey that we're on.

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But at the tsc level-- we've got a significant amount of churn.

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And we are even having trouble ourselves keeping up with it all and certainly not.

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Bringing on outsiders with it. so we--, we need to do better.

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its a failing. and not a good one.

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William, the topic of open openness and transparency shouldn't be assumed to be about protecting.

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From nafarious activities.

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danese actually believed that the information was being made available. Online.

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Later I discovered,, as I suspected, that--, to her-- the idea that it wasn't online.

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so what happened? well-- simple-- nobody volunteered to do? It!.

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Well, until I did!.

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I want us to try-- to document as much as we can for you.

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I don't want to neglect the parts of the story because they're boring or not page-turning chapters.

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I don't want to risk falling into an editorialized recollection of the history.

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..., even if nobody intended to do so.

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dcumented the work we do on node.js and the discussions that brought us to where.

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We are today is so anyone-- of any background-- can follow along get informed and join in as if they had taken the journey with us.

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By the way, that audio of rod was -- of him answering a question I asked during.

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Live q&a during one of the tsc meetings.

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I reflected on that answer for a few days and.

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Eventually, I--, I realized where--. I could bring the most value to the node community.

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..., it was here, this is what they were asking for at last.

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Year's node interactive. help raise topics. start the conversations. extract information into issues and pr's.

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These are really important ways to help out ...and. I already been doing it for months!.

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The technical steering committee charter begins with:, section 1:, guiding principle.. The node.js foundation will operate, transparently,, openly,, collaboratively, and ethically.

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Project proposals,, timelines, and status must not merely be open,.

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--, but also easily visible to outsiders.

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This isn't some--. Some like "it sounds good thing" that was jotted down.

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This is what it takes-- to make sure that anyone from any background.

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Can find their way into the community.

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and we need more people to help show up-- to show up and help. I mean.

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Producing the new verses of node.js takes a big team of contributors, now.

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It's a big machine with many moving parts, -- needing many people with different skills.

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And backgrounds. so like any large group of people,, it needs coordination.

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So there's this foundation.

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Most people have -no- idea what that means.

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like. Is it a bunch of people that get together like.. a bible, study..?.

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Or, you know,, like a secret handshake society,, you know, amongst a few big companies?.

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Nooo..., the answer is on the website.. If we peek at this certificate of incorporation, document,.

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We see that it was formed in august -- of last year.

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-- in the state of delaware, it has a board of directors and it's a 501.c(6).

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Which is the type of nonprofit that serves its membership.

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That's you!... or it could be you..

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If we pop over this document--, the "by-laws"..

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It says a bunch more information., most notably to our interests--, is that there must be a technical steering committee.

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That is in charge of the technical direction of the project.

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And that there are members!, that's you!... or it could be you..

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For more information on how to become a member click here or in the comments, below!

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...it's, a 20-minute talk;, I had to cut something out!.

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Don't forget to like and subscribe!.

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Right now, lara is in the back or something like:.

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"Seriously william!?, okay, add link to video and in comment.".

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Speaking of the linux foundation:, this is a relationship that is one of the.

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Most confusing things about the node foundation.

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yes!, that's right--, because it's not documented and easily visible to outsiders!.

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Let's help fix that right, now., it's very simple.. The node.js foundation pays the linux foundation for consulting services.

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And by having this arrangement, the node.js foundation, is, therefore,,.

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A linux foundation, collaboration, project.

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So the linux foundation is like your homeowners' association's.

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Management company..., but for open source projects.

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Alright, this is how the org is set up.

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there we have the technical steering committee as mentioned before.

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We have some big black boxes over there... uuhhh...

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.. just wanted to illustrate them as big black boxes.

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So the technical steering committee deals with the [technical] administrative details.

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Of the foundation., this is where I'm often buzzing around.

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The real technical work is is dedicated to the ctc.

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--, the core technical committee .., which then delegates many things to working, groups,, teams, and collaborators.

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That's you!.. or it could be you.

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You might think the board belongs to the top of this diagram, but that doesn't really feel representative of how things really work.

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The collaborators are at the top., they make the substantial technical decisions.

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The group's below they-- they serve to support the group's above it.

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And I can't comment about the black boxes over there.

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Okay. all this stuff is important just to give you context to of the world node lives, in.

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That stuff will help you decipher some of the discussions. You'll come.

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Across in the node.js github repos.

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So let's talk about github.

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The node.js github org is one of the most active open-source orgs on github..

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That's because we just get help for almost everything.

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So you'll need to understand _how_ we use github.

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Obviously, yes,, we use it for code projects but,. As mentioned before,. There are several.

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Working groups, teams,, the ctc,, the tsc-- each one of them has a repo has used to collaborate.

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On for their topic., these repos usually won't even have code in it!.

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This one just has a few documents in it..

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The repo exist just for the issue tracker. So if you look over there..

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You will find where all the action is.

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Alright, but working groups;, there's a page on the website listing them all.

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So,, you can go there and check out what each one is for..

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You can also click on the link and pop over to github and--.

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And dig in even more teams, on the other hand, they're harder to find and understand.

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They are informal groups that have been created to kick off looking into something.

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They're--, like recently, we created the group for looking into creating an official.

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Node version manager. pretty cool... There isn't an easy way to discover them right now and that's one of my big criticisms.

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There just a few teams-- there are a few teams, I'd like to call out--.

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Hah sorry-- there are few teams that, like to call themselves.

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Working groups just add to your confusion.

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Just know, that if you can't find the on the working groups, page, then they're not chartered and they're. Not official working group.

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So let's say that you dive into the documentation working group.

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And you read up on what they're doing and-- uh or what they want to be doing, maybe,.

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In some cases, uhh and-- you make some suggestions,.

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Hopefully open some pr's..., then what? notifications. notifications are a major key to getting involved and staying up-to-date.

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You you may not hear back for a while in your issues.

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So click the watch button and you'll get an email.

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Like every time something happens on that repo.

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This notification system is a big reason why we use github to collaborate.

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Here's a pro tip:, the folks over at github,. They use these special emails [addresses].

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--When the emails come in that you-- like, in this case, have been mentioned in.., so you can put filters on them and set them up.

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A big warning:, the node core repo, has a lot of notifications.

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There's a lot of activities there., so many of us have filters setup on it.

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So we only get notified when we're mentioned directly in a comment.

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Furthermore,, we all _know_ that we do this. So that's why you'll see people @mentioned.

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Contributing takes major patients and major diligence.

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I'm going to leave you with a few of my top tips for interacting on github.

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number 1:. Don't assume you're right.

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Do your homework show what led you to your _current_ point of view.

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If you're wrong,, someone will come along and add some missing piece of information... and then it will be documented for the next person.

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Don't just open issues... research, possible solutions.

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And-- and say that you're willing to help!.

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This one's a big one:, your work will be scrutinized!.

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You need to get to a state of mind where you're, okay, with that.

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Don't get offended. the person isn't after you., they don't think they're better than you..

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If you look at that person's work, you'll find that somebody is.

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Scrutinizing the work that they're doing.: that's how the system works. it's like that, because everybody just wants to build the best product, possible.

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Once you get onboard of that way, life you'll just-- you'll, switch your mind and then you'll just expect. It-- it'll be no big deal.

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patience... patience, patience... patience.

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Node is a worldwide community.

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So-- a lot of times--, you need to wait for people to wake up.

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Or get off of work -- or a lot of times, just for whatever they get a minute to go check your email.

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When I sent those messages-- those-- those tweets, to danese, I did--, I didn't expect her to drop everything she was doing and go make it right.

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The reality is that she doesn't need to answer my questions at all.

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No one _needs_ to help us!, everyone is a _volunteer_.

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in general, people want to help you., but in no scenario does someone want to _work_ for you .., so don't be bossy.

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You must champion your own cause., be persistent!.

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Where are those board minutes?? Where are those board--? There isn't a board member? I have met that hasn't had me-- hasn't had to hear me. Go on-and-on about.

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How are not getting the board minutes and we're not getting enough notification.

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For when board meetings are going to be announced.

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...And now I'm here barking at you even more about it.

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Alright., so all of this is how contributing to node happens. Today.

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This is the outcome of a bunch of volunteers, _best efforts_.,.

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It is not perfect., it is not optimal-- or even correct!.

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So this talk is a pr.. to you.

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the community.. With all the background, information of what led me to this point of view.

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My suggestions on how I think we can make it better.

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and my best efforts to help out.

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Please send me some lgtms and some nits.

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My name is william kapke. thank you.