From Teaching Open Source

[edit] Commarch Project

Origin of this assignment: I originally created this assignment for the HFOSS class at RIT as a way of getting students to think about the way that open source communities are structured. Older adults who have some experience with hierarchical and consensus-based organizations may approach new affiliations with more critical or even jaundiced eyes, but this is most often not the case with students (God bless them). I thought that an assignment that made students think critically about social structures would help them make more successful choices in open source affiliations. Subsequently, Mel Chua at Red Hat has used this assignment at a POSSE in South Africa with some success.

We are going to take presentations from each group. An informal presentation is fine—you do not need to hand anything in. A Gourse animation based on the project's GIT repository is EXTREMELY helpful in these discussions.

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Humanitarian Open Source Software Fall 2010 – Professor David Shein

“Commarch”-- Community Architecture

Open Source Community Characterization Assignment

Working in groups of two or three, you are going to look at an OS community/project and deduce how that community is organized. You may also use some of these techniques to assess pre-existing OS projects you wish to contribute to for your term project.

1. Use Ohloh and OpenHatch collect general information on open source projects. Select one active software project about which to write. Have an alternative handy if you find that you cannot get much information about your first choice.
2. Dig deeper. Use the project’s IRC logs, git repository, mail list history, open IRC channels, an any other communication channel you find, to get the answers to the following questions:
   1. Describe software project, its purpose and goals.
   2. Give brief history of the project.
   3. Look at the git repository and the developer blogs ask the following questions:
      1. Who approves patches? How many people?
      2. Who has commit access? & how many?
      3. Who is involved in the history of the project?
      4. Who are the principal contributors, and have they changed over time?
      5. Who are the maintainers?
      6. Who is on the front end (user interface) and back end (processing or server side)?
      7. What have been some of the major bugs/problems/issues that have arisen during development? Who is responsible for quality control and bug repair?
      8. How is the project’s participation trending and why?
   4. Based on these answers, how would you describe the decision making structure/process of this group? Is it hierarchical, consensus building, ruled by a small group, barely contained chaos, or ruled by a single or pair of individuals?
   5. Is this the kind of structure you would enjoy working in? Why, or why not.
3. Write up a set of answers to these questions including how you arrived at your conclusions (links or convo quotes, etc.) to be handed in
4. Based on your notes write up your research results in a brief PowerPoint to present to the class.

• Potential projects list