Measuring contribution to an open source project

Written by Arno Zijlstra Tuesday, 28 October 2008 12:51

Packt Publishing has announced a list of Most Valued People from Open Source Content Management System Projects.

With this list they are aiming to give people that contribute to Open Source Projects the credits they deserve instead of these people going unnoticed.

While I think it is a great thing to give people credits when they deserve it I noticed something that made me think.

For Joomla! there is one person in the list and that person has made great contributions to Joomla! (no doubt about that) by being the lead architect for the Joomla! 1.5 framework and I congratulate him with being on the list.

I have a couple of issues though with the fact that Packt is creating this list and stating that it is to honor individuals that often go unnoticed as they write in their announcement.

How do you measure "contributions" and "unnoticed"?

On the Joomlatools blog they measure contribution by looking at the commit count and forum post count and while this of course indicates someones activity level clearly it isn't just the visible numbers that make someone a great contributor.

How hard is it to be unnoticed when you have commit access to the project, are the publicly announced development lead for the project and have access to publish on the project official website?

Aren't the real unnoticed people the people that do tasks like project infrastructure, legal matters, bug squad, forum moderation, documentation and all the other jobs that are done in the background by various committed people to keep a huge project like Joomla! rolling. I think they are.

Non the less, congrats Johan (and Louis who is also highly responsible for the 1.5 framework and the bugsquad that made 1.5 happen) and in the spirit of Open Source, congrats to all the people in the background that make Joomla! such a great project.

About the author Arno Zijlstra

Arno Zijlstra is the creative mind and founder of alvaana.com development lab for the web. He is one of the original founders of the Joomla! Open Source Content Management System and has been involved in a couple of other Open Source projects. His passion is creating sites and interfaces that look different and are built with accessibility, usability and web-standards being truly important. Always on the look out for new things and open to learn from anyone, anytime.

Follow me at http://twitter.com/me_arno

More about Arno Zijlstra

There are 7 comments posted.

# 1 - Posted by: X-Ception on 2008-10-28 16:11:06

While your points are correct in that contributions measured by numbers is perhaps not the best way. Johan in this instance as you so pointed out for the period gone by is by far the biggest contributor to the Joomla! 1.5 Framework.

From serving with Mambo, helping setup the founding blocks for Joomla! and then virtually writing 90% of the 1.5 codebase as well as globe trotting to a zillion Joomla! days around the world... takes a lot of commitment

At the same time taking moments to post on the forums and help support the community all the while putting together joomlatools which is now pioneering some fantastic additions (not to mention he wrote rokbridge in the meantime too)

So, again i agree with your point, but in the case of Joomla!'s MVP its firmly deserved IMHO

Re: Measuring contribution to an open source project

# 2 - Posted by: Anthony Ferrera on 2008-10-28 16:56:08

X-Ception:

I suggest NOT discounting others that contributed to 1.5. To say that Johan was by far the biggest contributor, is discounting Louis's, Andrew's, (and MANY others') contributions. Johan was part of the team. The TEAM made 1.5. Without the team, it would not have been done. Period.

I suggest using svn blame to see how much of the 1.5 codebase Johan actually wrote... 90% is extremely high (and completely made up), and is no where near accurate.

Nobody is doubting any commitment here. All Arno was pointing out, was that the results from this survey don't coincide with it's own stated mission...

Re: Unsung Heroes

# 3 - Posted by: brian teeman on 2008-10-28 17:38:48

I tend to agree with Arno on this one. Although writing the code is perhaps the most visible way of contributing to an Open source project every project has its own unsung heroes who contribute in other ways.

After all there is little point in:-

1. writing great code if there is no promotions team to promote it

2. writing great code if there is no server to download it from

3. writing great code if there is no funds to enable developers to meet in person and discuss best practices etc

4. writing great code if there are no documenters to explain how to use it

5. writing great code if there are no beta testers to evaluate it

etc etc etc

# 4 - Posted by: X-Ception on 2008-10-29 01:22:50

Anthony,

thanks for the suggestion, but others are not the ones in the spotlight - thus the purpose of the award...step back...breath say well done Johan ;)

# 5 - Posted by: Wilco Jansen on 2008-10-29 15:57:39

As Anthony also states; the creation and release of 1.5, including all that has been done by the documenters, event organizers, infrastructure, forum etc. etc. is an effort from hundreds volunteers, and we can thank everyone of them every day for their work.

No doubt about Johan his contribution to the project, he did a tremendous amount of work, was very visible and the credits are well deserved. Well done!

This inspires me to work on a new blog, Ohloh is not updated for quite some time (> one year if I am correct)due to incompatible SVN versions, and it's interesting to see if we can say something about the code contribution of Joomla! Working on decompiling all commits ever done, more info shared later on, and if possible I want to include an comparison with other FOSS projects.

Stay tuned!

Re: Body Life

# 6 - Posted by: Andrew Eddie on 2008-10-29 22:57:00

The success of any project is made up of the sum total of all of the individual parts. Now, granted, many individual people have seasons of significant contributions. They can be likened to being a critically important as the heart, or the brain, or the digestive system if we use that analogy. But you are absolutely right Arno. There are so many unsung hereos in the project just as there are in the design of the human body. The clotting system often gets taken for granted. That daily constitutional is sometime considered and inconvenience but, oh, boy you know it if your bowels aren't working properly.

It's also fair to say the success is built on mistakes as well. I've made them, Johan, Louis, Anthony and the many others whose shoulders we stand on today.

I think Johan's award is well deserved, but I also echo others in that sometimes one persons contribution can be overstated, whether that be mine, or Johan's, or anyone elses (and certainly the commit count is not a good measure). 1.5 pre-release was forged by at least 5 key players (you know who you are, hehe). Post-release, well, what can I say about the JBS - it's what has really made all of the developer effort a huge success.

But it seems we are still the underdog to Drupal, and honestly I think that will give us the impetus to not stay still and continue to strive for greatness - to unpack what seems to give Drupal the edge and apply those principles to our wonderful project.

# 7 - Posted by: Amy Stephen on 2008-10-30 03:44:38

It's the first year for the award, so, it needs some tweaking. One criteria I would suggest to PackT is that nominees participated in the project the year prior. In Johan's case, his contributions were prior to August 2007. This type of award might be more meaningful if it focused on the previous "reporting period."

I'd also be okay with setting this MVP thing aside. Strong communities are built on collaboration and a welcoming environment where anyone who wants to can contribute in an area of strength. An overemphasis on the work of one person holds others back and creates a caste setting. That's not a good long term strategy for creating a passionate, productive community. We don't need super heroes - we need innovation.

@Andrew - If we are Underdog, who's Drupal? ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcjOi_3H7gw

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