Last week I joined 1000s of other open advocates for 2 full days of https://fosdem.org/2020/ It was good to run into open source friends and OSM allies (Thanks OSM-be for the meetup). The event is actually bigger than 2 days if you count some of the pre-days which were very applicable (SustainOSS and Chaoss).

All the videos/slides are online, so as we consider how we might help OpenStreetMap and OpenStreetMap Foundation communities/members/working groups/board, please do consider reviewing.

Sustain OSS

SustainOSS-pre-event

Community Metrics:

Data-driven change is close to OSM’s culture. For the past years, I’ve been writing that we need a community strategy that uses data as part of our toolkit. The good news is that the Chaoss community health project is doing this. We could learn from them. This could build on the work from last year’s OSM survey, Manfred’s post on statistics, and our concerns noted in the OSM SWOT analysis. There are working groups across “open” communities on Common Metrics, Diversity and Inclusion, Evolution, Risk, and Value. I missed attending this full pre-FOSDEM day event, but all the slides are online:

Chaoss 2020

It would be good for a few of us to engage more with this network. Happy to co-work on this front.

Why do people Contribute?

The talk by James Bottomley on the Selfish Contributor was fascinating. On the one side, it was good to see a framing on the ‘ego’ of one type of contributor. My main concern about the talk is that it reinforced tropes on who contributes and why. He did not cover the heart of community responsibility or community health. We all need to be active in making this a safe, fun, inclusive, and healthy network. Overall, it was good to walk in this line of thinking.

Video: The Selfish Contributor

Legal and Policy

The legal and policy room was a full day of license, governance, and ethical considerations. Some of the items are recorded, but if you are going to watch one talk, especially the OSM License Working Group. It would be important to consider the implications for OSM:

Oracle v. Google: What are the implications for FOSS?

Community DevRoom

Honestly, just watch all the talks. I’m going to curate a “community developer track” for SOTM. If you would like to join, let Trudy and I know.

Community DevRoom

Some of my quick highlights:

• The next generation of contributors is not on IRC: Discussing communication channels for inclusive open source communities. Matt Broberg from RedHat analyzed community channels from the user journey point of view. I appreciated his framing of async, sync, F2F, and news.

• Cognitive biases, blindspots and inclusion. Thoughtful talk from a developer on truly building inclusion.

• Be ethical Building Ethical Software Under Capitalism

• Be a leader in Open Source . Megan Sanicki really frames the various types of leaders well in this talk. I know that in OSM this topic is a ‘trigger.’ Please do consider this perspective.

• Corporations and Open Source Projects. Jacob Redding gave a talk on Engaging Enterprise consumers of OSS. Enterprise contribution, participation, and support of OSS. As we reflect on Jenning’s talk from SOTM and the OEGs, how can we renew our relationship with corporate contributors. We could shape this better for our needs.

• Burnout. From time to time, we all burn out in open communities. How can we help each other and be healthy? Burnout.

The GeoSpatial room was full on Sunday am, so glad to see Ilya’s talk online. Really thankful for the FOSDEM community and organizers. I highly recommend going and actively participating.