When open source meets KPI, globalization vs localization, how can the ideal and reality of open source be reconciled?

author | Ren Chuanying

Recent years , Open source is booming all over the world ： One side , More and more people are engaged in the open source ecosystem , In addition to developers , People who don't know the code can also contribute to the open source community ; On the other hand , The form of open source contribution is more yuan , No longer stick to writing code , Document contribution 、 Open source preaching is also an important action to build open source ecology .

While the open source ecosystem is becoming larger and larger , It also brings new thinking to developers and enterprises ：「KPI Open source 」 Is it wrong ？ Open source , Enterprises and individuals who dominate have more advantages ？ Can open source agreements protect the rights and interests of developers or open source projects ？ Open source 「 localization 」 How to understand 、 How do you do it? ？……

In this issue 《WeOpen Talk》, Tengyuan will work with InfoQ Jointly invite the deputy director of cloud computing Department of Yunda Institute of Chinese Academy of communications , Guoxue, the tutor of Tengyuan Association 、 Assistant researcher, School of software, Tsinghua University ,Apache IoTDB PMC Chair, Huangxiangdong, a distinguished expert of Tengyuan Association, and SphereEX Founder and CEO,Apache ShardingSphere PMC Chair, Three teachers, Zhang Liang, tutor of Tengyuan Association , Discuss these issues together .

Video address ：http://mpvideo.qpic.cn/0bc3suaaeaaahaabfod33zrfbfodakkqaaqa.f10002.mp4?

1「KPI Open source 」 Really nothing ？

Enterprises pay more and more attention to open source , The most obvious manifestation is , Include indicators related to open source projects in KPI In the assessment of . meanwhile ,「KPI Open source 」 Once a programmer 「 condemn both in speech and in writing 」 The object of , The main reason is ： It does not conform to the spirit of open source , And it has caused a serious waste of enterprise resources . that ,「KPI Open source 」 Is it really good for nothing ？

First ,KPI Open source is just a form of assessment , And what are the assessment indicators , More important . If only will Star、Fork The equal quantity is listed as the assessment indicator , It is highly possible to only get the growth of these data .「 If we can define more rational assessment criteria , For example, change the coverage of English documents from the original 60% Upgrade to 80%, I believe this is a good KPI」 Assistant researcher, School of software, Tsinghua University ,Apache IoTDB PMC Chair Huangxiangdong said .

「 The biggest difficulty of open source lies not in the above indicators and data , It's about how many people use ; The decision makers of the company should also realize that , Open source projects are not built in a day , It takes a period of silence to grow . Correctly understand the significance and growth path of open source projects , In order to avoid blind formulation KPI indicators .」SphereEX Founder and CEO,Apache ShardingSphere PMC Chair, Zhang Liang, the tutor of Tengyuan Association, concluded .

secondly , The enterprise is right KPI Importance of open source , For the industry , It also sends a positive signal —— Enterprises are paying attention to open source . Deputy director of cloud computing Department of Yunda Institute of Chinese Academy of communications , Guoxue, the tutor of Tengyuan Association, said , To develop KPI after , It may not make open source projects high-quality or technologically innovative , But it will enhance the industry's awareness of open source .

Now ,「KPI Open source 」 It is not exclusive to the enterprise , Open source communities and individuals can also be 「KPI Open source 」 The implementer or booster of . Mr. huangxiangdong recalled ：「 There was a time last year , There is an international 『Give me a T-shirt』 The activities of , Just contribute code to the open source community , You can receive one T T-shirt . Activity period , I am in the community （IoTDB） I noticed , A foreigner added a line of carriage return at the end of a file , However, this carriage return has no meaning . So , Such wrong practices will also interfere with the normal operation of the open source community 」.

in general ,「KPI Open source 」 Setting goals for the team 、 Concentrate resources on open source , It has a positive effect , But if you make it look only Star、Fork Count 「 Surface open source 」, Make blindly KPI, So even if you put in manpower and time , Nor can it create a high-quality open source project .

2 Should open source be driven by individuals or enterprises ？

Enterprises doing open source may appear 「KPI Open source 」, In open source projects , There are few full-time developers working on open source projects , More people are contributing to the open source projects of enterprises , Or do open source out of interest after work . that , What are the advantages and disadvantages of enterprise driven and individual driven open source , Who has the greater advantage ？

As two important participants in the open source ecosystem , Both individuals and enterprises have obvious advantages in open source .「 The enterprise side participates in open source , It can provide long-term and stable support for open source , Open source projects on the personal side , It fully mobilized the participation of individuals , It is easier to generate technological innovation 」 Guo Xue explained .

however , Enterprise support for open source projects , It's also a 「 Double-edged sword 」. Open source projects need to avoid over reliance on the enterprise . Huang Xiangdong gives an example ：「Apache There is a project called PLC4X, This project needs to collect data from industrial equipment , When industrial equipment is very expensive and there is no enterprise support , You need someone to solve these things , But if it is a project initiated by the enterprise side , These problems can be easily solved ; But if open source projects are not open enough , There is only one enterprise to lead , When the enterprise is facing strategic transformation , The project will face great risks 」.

in general , The advantages of individuals and enterprises in open source are complementary ： In open source projects , Enterprises can provide more support for the project , Enable individuals to explore more technological breakthroughs , Forming a virtuous circle .「 When an enterprise for commercial reasons , When you no longer invest in open source projects , Open source projects will face crisis ; But when an enterprise's open source project is in the business plan , It will provide the bottom line guarantee for open source projects 」 Zhang Liang concluded .

therefore , For the founders of open source projects , Participate in other people's open source projects , It also allows others to create their own open source projects , This is very important . In a sense , In this way, the wisdom and strengths of individuals and enterprises can be accepted at the same time , Make open source projects and communities more viable .

3 Are open source protocols protective or restrictive for developers ？

Open source frees everyone from 「 Repeat the wheel 」, But because open source is mostly a personal behavior , And everyone's understanding of open source is not completely unified , therefore , The development of open source is also accompanied by disputes . Who will protect the interests of open source workers ？ How to balance open source and commercialization ？…… There are already some open source protocols for developers to choose from , How about its actual use ？ Is it really useful ？

「 Because the open source agreement is the language of law , So it's not easy to understand , And the terms of the different agreements look very similar at first sight .」 When it comes to open source protocols , Huangxiangdong made such comments , At the same time, he said , At present, people generally do not pay attention to the license of open source projects , Developers need an entry point to learn about open source protocols , To improve their understanding of open source protocols .

But for developers , People pay more attention to technology , Learning the open source protocol is a 「 Yes, but not necessarily 」 Things about . Plus , At the beginning of the open source project, it is difficult to predict the future development of the project , After carefully studying the open source protocol, there is little difference between choosing one and blindly choosing one in the short term .

So in the early stage , How open source projects should choose protocols ？ Zhang Liang provides an idea for developers who do not understand the open source protocol . He thinks that , The choice of open source protocols may have something to do with people's personalities , Some people are geeks , Hate business , So choose GPL Just fine ; Some people want to provide more possibilities for the project , Then you can choose a loose agreement , for example BSD; Some people are relatively neutral , It is hoped that there will be a certain degree of protection for both business and open source , So it's like Apache Such an agreement is more appropriate .

in fact , For the sake of insurance , When choosing an open source protocol , People prefer neutral agreements that protect both open source and commercial interests . Guo Xue said , The ICT Institute has investigated global open source projects , Developers prefer to choose friendly protocols , At home ,Apache License Is one of the most popular licenses , On the one hand, as mentioned above , It is neutral , And on the other hand , Compared with other licenses ,Apache License It is more normative in terms of patent granting , It can help open source projects avoid more pitfalls .

In addition to the open source protocol , Policy norms are also a way to make the open source ecosystem better . last year , General Office of the people's Bank of China 、 Five departments including the Secretariat of the central office of Internet and information technology jointly issued 《 Opinions on standardizing the application and development of open source technology in the financial industry 》, Promote the healthy and sustainable development of open source technology , This is not only a signal that the traditional industry is entering the open source ecosystem , Also open source for specifications 、 Compliance puts forward higher requirements .

In addition to open source agreements and policies , There are still some mechanisms that need to be complemented , For example, compliance rights protection in the open source field . Huangxiangdong told a real case , Because every year graduates have to write graduation thesis , And the format of graduation thesis is very strict , So there is a group in Tsinghua to maintain a Latex（ A typesetting software ） Templates , You just need to write a document in this software and you won't make mistakes . But not long ago , Another team said they had developed a template for the opening report , In fact, this template is only for Latex Has been deleted , therefore ,Latex The maintenance members of initiated rights protection in the circle of friends . although Latex It is widely used among Tsinghua students , But its author can only through the circle of friends and GitHub Make a sound in the library .

「 We need some channels for rights protection or consultation , Help open source workers in the event of non-compliance , There are ways to protect legitimate rights and interests , This will also be a good gain for the open source ecosystem 」 Huangxiangdong emphasized .

4「 localization 」 Is it against the spirit of open source ？

In the open source ecosystem , Out of the consensus of open sharing ,「 localization 」 It has become a controversial topic . Some open source people believe that ,「 localization 」 Contrary to the spirit of open source ; Some people think that , Whether it is the localization of the project or the localization of the community , Are of certain significance .

For the former statement , In fact, it is open source 「 localization 」 and 「 Globalization 」 It is not an either or contradiction , So with 「 localization 」 It is not contrary to the spirit of open source . Huangxiangdong mentioned , Open source projects adhere to localization at the same time , We should also adhere to internationalization, that is, technology output , It is more significant to form international implementation standards than to become domestic implementation standards .

For the latter statement , Both project localization and community localization are meaningful , In particular, the latter is of greater significance to the development of open source .「 The localization of the community can help the local people to reduce the language barriers , Get more understandable information 」 Huangxiangdong said . Zhang Liang further added his own views , He said ：「 A global project after localization , You can get its source code 、 Use all the documentation to Quick start, It's a very good thing . Localization of open source projects is not geographically isolated , But to create more convenient conditions for the growth of open source projects in each region , image Apache Local Community（ALC） It can help local people to contact open source projects 」.

So , Cross language communication , Is a common problem faced by open source workers . At present, there are many ways to support cross-border communication , As IoTDB PMC Chair, Huangxiangdong observed , Currently in IoTDB in , International communication often uses Slack、MailList Methods such as , For domestic users , People will be more accustomed to using wechat groups and QQ Group communication , Foreign users can also use the translation function provided by wechat , Communicate with domestic users in their mother tongue , Let the open source community roll bigger .

Of course, it is not enough to rely solely on tool communication , The community also needs document contributors who can translate , Translate Chinese materials into other languages , Or translate materials from other languages into Chinese . Huangxiangdong emphasized ：「 Localization should be two-way , It should not be one-way , Fast iteration of document language , Enable more people to participate in the open source community 」. Such an open source ecosystem would accommodate non code contributors , Let more people know about open source , Become an open source contributor .

「 Localization of open source , It will eventually move towards the trend of globalization 」 Guo Xue concluded .

5 At the end

Although there are disputes in the open source field , But the value of the open source spirit is hard to measure . Now , Open source agreements and regulations are being improved , In addition to code contributors , Document contributors 、 More and more roles such as evangelists can also use open source projects 、 Organizations and communities , Join the open source ecosystem . What kind of sparks will different roles in the open source ecosystem collide in the future , What technological innovations will it bring , We are looking forward to .