TECH(K)NOW Day, London

1. Open Source for First Timers
Cheryl Hung, Director of Ecosystem, CNCF
@oicheryl

2. © 2019 Cloud Native Computing Foundation2
Cheryl Hung (@oicheryl)
Director of Ecosystem,
Cloud Native Computing
Foundation / Linux
Foundation
Engineer at Google
CS at Cambridge

3. © 2019 Cloud Native Computing Foundation3
Agenda
1. How do you get into open source?
2. How do you get paid to work on open source?
3. What should you watch out for?
Not on the agenda: how to use git / Github

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What is open source software?
Software where source code is made freely
available and may be redistributed and modified.
Contributing helps you improve your skills, grow your
public reputation, and be part of a community.

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Linux Foundation model for sustainable open
source

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Cloud Native Computing Foundation
• Nonprofit, part of the Linux Foundation; founded Dec 2015
• Platinum members:
Incubating
Service Mesh StorageService Discovery
Distributed Tracing Software Update
Spec
Security
Graduated
Package
Management
Networking APILogging Remote
Procedure Call
Distributed Tracing
API
Container Runtime
Container Runtime
Messaging
Orchestration Service ProxyMonitoring
RegistryStorage Key/Value
Store

7. How do you get into open
source?

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Unscientific poll - how did you get started?
“Meeting people in university lab/meetups/
conferences/online...”
“When I switched employer”
“Needed somewhere to dump a personal project”

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Ways to contribute
• Run events
• Speak
• Help people
• Help people to code
• Design
• Code
• Write
• Organize
https://opensource.guide/how-to-contribute/

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Meetups - Cloud Native London

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Kubernetes Slack moderation

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Kubernetes pull requests

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Find your speciality - then do more of it

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Building your career in tech
Role
https://medium.com/@gwenshapira/building-a-career-exploring-vs-exploiting-eee071408c24
Technology
Communication
methods
Domain
Exploit 1-2 dimensions, explore 1-2.

15. How do you paid to work on
open source?

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Understand the incentives
1. Building company brand
2. Recruiting
3. Open source projects in line with company
strategy

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If your company doesn’t support OS contributions
• Go elsewhere
• Crowdfunding, sponsorship or grants
• Start your own company
https://opensource.guide/getting-paid/

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Be visible!

19. What should you watch out
for?

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Pitfalls
• A lot of unspoken rules in open source and on
Github
• High barrier to entry and inertia in large projects
• Very few independent maintainers

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Solution: Find a sponsor
https://inclusion.slac.stanford.edu/sites/inclusion.slac.stanford.edu/files/The_Key_Role_of_a_S
ponsorship_for_Diverse_Talent.pdf

22. © 2019 Cloud Native Computing Foundation22
Summary
• Contribute in ways you are strong at.
• Every community has unspoken rules. Find
someone to help you navigate them!

23. Thanks!
Slides at oicheryl.com