[Chaoss-members] Proposal for a FOSDEM devroom

Mon Sep 18 07:53:05 UTC 2017

On Wed, 2017-09-13 at 13:21 -0700, Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona wrote:
> BTW, I will include your name as a backer of the proposal, maybe with
> some others if I have their approval.
> 
> In your case, I will assume that you're ok if I use your name and
> affiliation, as it is in the list of board members, except that you
> tell me otherwise (sorry for the opt-out, but deadline is getting
> closer, and I completely forgot asking you about this during our
> meeting).
> [...]

Hi all,

Find below the final proposal I will be sending tonight to FOSDEM
(deadline is approaching). I've talked to Stefano Zacchiroli to be the
secondary contact, and one of the backers. He is a well known FOSS
developer, and especially well known in the context of FOSDEM, and he
agreed to back our proposal. He agrees in the proposal being mainly a
CHAOSS thing (as much inclusive as possible, as we had dedcided), so
the text is the same I sent you. This version is only formatted to meet
the form that FOSDEM provides.

If you have any comment, please send it asap, so that I can have it
into account before submitting.

Saludos,

	Jesus.

-------------------------------------------
https://submission.fosdem.org/devroom.php

* Proposal for a FOSDEM devroom: FOSS Development Analytics*

* Title: FOSS Development Analytics

* Description

** Main objectives **

To reinforce the emerging community interested in FOSS (free, open
source software) development analytics.

More specifically:

- To discuss the current status of FOSS tools in this area
- To share models about FOSS health and sustainability based on factual
data
- To share experiences by FOSS projects already doing their own
analytics
- To find ways of pooling development effort and other resources
- To explore the requirements and functionality of future platforms

** Summary **

Tools and platforms for analyzing and visualizing information from
software repositories (source code management, bug reporting /
ticketing, code review, mailing lists, etc.) are flourishing. Many of
them are proprietary, which means that in many cases, FOSS (free, open
source software) projects are having to use proprietary tools to
analyze themselves.

There is also a lot of interest in models to evaluate the health,
quality or sustainability of FOSS projects, based on factual data
retrieved mainly from their repositories. But there are little
opportunities of sharing these interests, and the experiences in
building and applying these models, in venues were all stakeholders are
represented: developers, academics, project managers, users, etc.

We believe that the FOSS development model is specially well suited for
being applied in both cases. In fact, many projects are already
developing software and setting up platforms for analyzing their own
repositories, some FOSS systems and tools do exist for retrieving,
analyzing and visualizing information about FOSS development, and some
health and quality models for FOSS are being created and discussed
using practices quite similar to those of FOSS development.

If a certain critical mass is reached in this domain, it is reasonable
to assume that usual mechanisms observed in FOSS development will
enable incremental innovation and the quick improvement of the
capabilities of these tools and models.

The FOSS Development Analytics devroom intends to be an open venue to
present these models, tools, and analysis that are already under
development, and to discuss about collaboration, synergies, etc. The
devroom will be organized to foster discussion and finding of
synergies, but also development of new tools and models, improvement of
existing ones, and spread the knowledge about what is being done and
can be done in this area. Given that the devroom will happen in the
context of FOSDEM, it will be focused on the needs, interests and
contributions of FOSS developers.

** Backers **

This proposal is put together by the CHAOSS group, which includes
contributors from well known FOSS Foundations, companies producing FOSS
tools for software development analytics, and academics with experience
in analysis of FOSS projects. To ensure that the needs of the wider
FOSS development community are met, CHAOSS has contacted other parties,
and all together have put together this list of people backing the
proposal, and with interest in contributing to the success of the
devroom (alphabetic order, all of them representing themselves,
affiliation is only informative):

The responsibility for the organization and coordination will be led by
the CHAOSS group, in a way as inclusive as open as possible.

* CHAOSS Group: http://chaoss.community

List of backers:

Andrea Gallo, Linaro
Daniel M German, University of Victoria
Don Marti, Mozilla
Ildikó Vancsa, OpenStack Foundation
Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona, Uni. Rey Juan Carlos, Bitergia
Jono Bacon, Jono Bacon Consulting
Josianne Marsan, Université Laval
Matt Germonprez, University of Nebraska-Omaha
Scott K. Peterson, Red Hat
Sean Goggins, University of Missouri
Stefano Zacchiroli, INRIA, Software Heritage
Wayne Beaton, Eclipse Foundation

** Participants **

Participation as speaker in the devroom will be subject to an open call
for contributions. This call will be communicated through mailing lists
and social media channels related to the subject, in which the backers
of the proposal participate.

The backers of this proposal commit to prepare at least five
presentations for the devroom, which will be submitted through the open
call. They will  be subject to the same review and selection process
than the other proposals.

In addition, anyone could attend, provided there is space. Interaction
between speakers and other attendants will be promoted as much as
possible.

** Organization **

An organizing committee will be established to promote the devroom, the
open call, and the organization in general. It will be composed by the
backers, plus some other persons related to the subject of the devroom.
It will be as much inclusive as possible, giving voice to FOSS projects
and developers interested in the subject.

The organizing committee will produce the call for contributions, which
will be based on this proposal. They will receive all proposals, and
will openly discuss about how to better accommodate as many of them as
possible, while at the same time fostering discussion and reserving
some slots for open interaction.

The devroom will include some time for demos and live explanations of
how to use FOSS applications for analyzing software development,and
models of FOSS health, specifically focused to FOSS developers.

All the materials used in the talks, demos and other activities will be
published under free culture licenses.

Since this is the first year the devroom will be celebrated, we
envision having a half-day (morning or afternoon) devroom, but a full
day devroom will also be possible.

* Why does it fit FOSDEM

FOSDEM is the main meeting, worldwide, for FOSS developers. Therefore,
it is the best place to have discussions on how to do analytics on FOSS
development, to learn about the interests of FOSS developers, to listen
to their stories of how they are already doing analytics in their
projects, etc.

Besides, we're concerned that many FOSS developers are consuming
analytics prodcued with non-FOSS tools, which they cannot modify, audit
or even understand. We want to specifically address this situation,
making the FOSS development community at large aware of the situation,
informing about alternatives using FOSS tools, and discussing how to
coordinate the projects already producing FOSS tools in this domain.

* Primary contact:

Jesus M.
Gonzalez-Barahona
jgb at bitergia.com

I've been researching FOSS development for more than 15 years. I was
one of the organizers of the Research devroom at FOSDEM (2007-2009),
and come to FOSDEM almost every year. In 2012 I co-founded Bitergia, a
startup devoted to FOSS analytics, which follows a business model based
on producing FOSS software. I started around 2005 one of the earlier
projects for FOSS Analytics, Grimoire Tools, and I'm a contributor of
GrimoireLab, a new project which has built all the analytics toolchain
from scratch, reusing other FOSS components. I'm one of the founders of
the CHAOSS collaborative project.

* Secondary contact:

Stefano
Zacchiroli
zack at upsilon.cc

Stefano Zacchiroli is an academic and computer scientist. He is also a
free software activist and developer. He served as Debian Project
Leader from 2010 to 2013, and is one of the co-founders and current CTO
of Software Heritage. He serves as board director of the Open Source
Initiative. He has many years of experience on extracting and analyzing
information related to FOSS development.

-- 
-- 
Bitergia: http://bitergia.com
/me at Twitter: https://twitter.com/jgbarah