The Foundation exists to secure the long-term success and sustainability of the MariaDB project, and the foundation's mission includes being a hub for collaboration around MariaDB. The foundation also has the necessary governance in place so that it can facilitate collaboration, even of parties that have conflicting interests.
The foundation is funded by individual sponsors and corporate sponsors, like Booking.com, Automattic, Parallels, Verkkokauppa.com and others.
The foundation is funded by individual sponsors and corporate sponsors, like Booking.com, Automattic, Parallels, Verkkokauppa.com and others
With this background it is quite suitable for me to talk about collaboration in open source, as I have a lot of examples to back up my story. Naturally most of my examples are from MariaDB but not exclusively. I also have examples from other projects I've been involved in, and I am certain that the principles at work in these cases are quite universal for open source software in general.
Mailing list, chat, bug tracker. Plans and discussions in the open. Pull requests get processed and bugs at least commented.
Alternative is to keep a patch to yourself and then having to refresh it on every upstream release.
A way to learn new things. Getting credits for authorship will improve reputation as an expert. Possibility to make an impact in the world, gives meaning and is fun!
Why graphics or documentation? It will be nicer to read or look at.
Localization? No other way to get it.
Special features? Must become integrated in the rest of the software.
Collaboration is a very interesting topic because the idea of pooling talent from around the world to solve a common problem is very compelling. Think about it: you have a problem that can be solved with software, and as the software is universal, you'll have people from all around the world, working together to produce the best possible solution to the problem. This has never before been possible until now, thanks to the global internet network and the intanglible nature of the software.
How many of you have participated online in some global collaboration? It is actually very exiting to do, because as all results are public, at any given time a new person might pop up and present a new solution that challenges the old solution. And as this process goes on you start to be pretty confident that the solution you end up with is state of the art. The process however not simple, and it does not happen automatically. Today I'll share some examples of how the process can be organized and facilitated.