Towards an Open Development CultureLars Kurth, Contributor Community

This talk is about sharing what we have learned in the last 8 months!

Nokia acquires Symbian Ltd

A short history

1998

2008

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. Public

Symbian Ltd was founded

2009

2006

100 millionphones shipped

250 different phone models

250 million phones shipped

Initial codecontribution

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An independent nonprofit open source organization

Membership based Board of directors staffed by funding members

We are …

Members 2009

Preparation work:Preparation work:Seeding the creation of the Foundation

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 6

Expert teams Staffed by Nokia and Symbian Ltd to look at specific problems

More than 100 people were involved

Oversight by founding members

Planning the Foundation

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Looking to solve problems such as ...

What Infrastructureis needed?Bug tracker, Mailing Lists, SCM system, etc.

How is the platform governed?Feature & Roadmap, Architecture, UI and Release councils

How are roadmaps created?

What are the different open source roles?Package Owners, Committers, etc.

How will the code base be structured?System model and technology domains

How do different parts ~of the community work together?Collaboration Process

AND MANY MORE …

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Helped give

Symbian a GOOD START

BUT: of course there

were some issues !

Gaps, unintended consequences,

somethings did not fit

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Preparing the Code3rd party IP and the initial contributionPreparing the Code3rd party IP and the initial contribution

40 Million Lines of C++

After 10 years the codebase contained a big portion of 3rd party IP

Which could not be open sourced

The IP Challenge

40 million lines of code had to be checked for IP violations Many false positives Many benign cases (e.g. code copied from a book)

It took 6 months to identify all serious IP issues 16% of components had an instance of an IP issue 94 cases altogether

Affected code needed to be removed initially Ultimately replace by open source friendly code

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation.

Handling IP Holes

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Removing code left “dirty holes” – aka components that did not build.

Refactor code such that components build – “clean holes”

Contribution, R&D License or non-core

items(leave the

hole)Fill the holes …(on average 10 per month)

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Challenge:negotiating IP issues

The cultural challenge:The cultural challenge:changing an eco-system

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Eco-system: what to do?

Raising questions such as …• Will Symbian still be

around in a year?

• What is the opportunity?• What is the risk?• How does the game

change?• How do I adapt?• Do I need to change my

business model?

This takes time

Many eco-system companiesare concluding this process

Early birds are thriving

A shock for the eco-system

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 15

How do I find 130 open source leaders who know their technology?

I Can’t! Experts need to grow into open leaders over time!

Personal “change” challenges• Why would anybody want to

contribute?• What do I need to do to be successful?• What support can I count on • What am I allowed / not allowed to do?

Solution: education, supporting, mentor and rewarding desired behavior!

Solution: foundation staff leading and act as role models

Community Leadership: in its Infancy

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 16

All contributions satisfy a SELFISH NEED!

Show me the NEED

Show me the MONEY

We had to learn what motivates contributions

Transfer the knowledge to the community

Starting the Contributor Community

Transfer the knowledge to our open source leaders

Contributions: Thank You !!!

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Initial contributions:

Contributions being worked on …

Other contributions so far …

Major contributionsin the making• 3 from Japan• 5 from Nokia • 7 otherwise• More discussed at SEE

Smaller contributions just happen! Hard to track

Lessons learnt!Lessons learnt!

So far …

How are OSS projects normally created?

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IdeaProprietaryMi

• Process takes between 2-24 months• Project adds 2-3 committers • Process requires a large amount of support• Apache average: 14 months

Incubator

Project

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How can you do this as FAST as possible when you have a HUGE initial contribution?

Lesson: A STRONG FOUNDATION

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A strong team of community managers andtechnology managers

Can find and work withvendors who may want tocontribute

And prove to community that the model works

An open source organization with some technical capability

Can initiate projects

Because of results the community takes initiative

And show opportunities

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 22

Building and releasing the platform and development kits.

Many open source projects struggle with common goods

Testing for compatibility

A variant of the Tragedy of the Commons

Solution: the open source Foundation delivers critical common goods

Lesson: Common Goods

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SFL Package EPL Package

Members CompaniesUsing and contributing

EverybodyUsing and contributing

Two stages to true Open Source

A beta period towards going open source : learn, fix & de-risk

Moving to the EPL

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IDE, hostenv,

etc.

Security

Kernel,beagleboard, qemu

16 out of 134Build

So far: learning how to EPL, such that ourcommunity can movefaster

Kernel:

Lesson: Two stage process

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The Good:• Time to staff the foundation• Time for community leaders to learn• Time to resolve challenges• Time to build momentum

The Bad:• Negative publicity• Negative sentiment from parts of

the OSS community

Lesson: LEAVE CHALLENGES

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When the foundation started, significant parts of how it was to operate were still to define

Council members had some CHALLENGES to resolve

Actually this was a blessing!

Problems (which people care about)

builds sense ofOWNERSHIP

Big stake in solving these+ =

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COUNCILS are becoming

mechanisms

for

COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION

Lesson: COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION

Councils:• F&R • Architecture• UI• Release

Lesson: LET EVERYBODY INFLUENCE

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Working groups (e.g. UI migration working group)

SIGs: Special Interest Groups

BoFs and other interactive parts of our annual conference!

Sense ofOWNERSHIP

Symbian Idea Sitehttp://ideas.symbian.org/: 400 ideas added in a week UI Brainstorm

Lesson: OPENESS

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Open ManagementOur community like the fact that roadmaps, backlogs, minutes, etc. are publicly available!

Many are experimenting with IDEAS – being open can lead to embarrassment

Be as open as you can

BUT

do not force your community to be!

Worry to share information that can be used to deduce trade secrets

Culture Change & Cultural Collision

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Lesson: INCENTIVE STRUCTURE

NeutralityVendor Community

DevelopmentClosed Open

• Can I influence the direction of the community?

• Influence = protect investment

• Can I see roadmaps, influence the direction of APIs and the platform?

• Influence = make the platform work for me

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Still lots to do and learn!

We have a very goodchance of succeeding

So far being part of this journey has been FUN, but also lots of HARD WORK!

Satio

F-03AF-01A F-08A

SH-05A

F-09A

SH-06ASH-06A Nerv

SH-07A

5230

SH-02AF-02AF-04A SH-03ASH-01A

X6 N97 Mini

N97

5800 Express Music

5530 Express Music

5800Navi

i8910

SH-04A

S^1 & S^2 devices in 2009

Some data to close...

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In 2012 - 2014 there will be 372 - 525 million smart phones.

Open Source in Mobile is here to stay !!!

Symbian is projected to be the most used OS in 2012 & 2014

>60% of these will be based on open source operating systems

• Juniper Research

• Gartner

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Questionslarsk@symbian.orgTwitter: lars_kurth