Community Communication: Which communication methods do high-performing open source communities use?
“Good words are worth much, and cost little.” George Herbert
Although effective communication is an essential skill in life, it is the most critical element in any business [2]. Lack of accurate communication is the common cause of issues in any organization, causing conflicts, reducing client relationships, team effectiveness, and profitability [2]. According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), ineffective communication is the main contributor to project failure one-third of the time, and it has a negative impact on project success more than half of the time [1].
In open source projects where there is a diverse and world spread community, effective communication is the key to projects’ success. Using the right technology is crucial for that. So, which tools do open source communities use for communication?
Ubuntu
The Ubuntu community uses mailing lists for development and team coordination. The mailing lists are split into announcement and news, support, development, testing and quality assurance, and general (such as translation, marketing, and documentation) [3]. Despite the mailing lists, IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels are used for informal daily chats and short-term coordination tasks [3]. If someone wants to know what is going on on Ubuntu, but doesn’t want to subscribe to the high traffic mailing list, the web forum can be used to get support and discuss about the future of Ubuntu. Finally, Ask Ubuntu can be used to ask technical questions.
Linux Kernel
Mailing lists are the main communication channels in the Linux Kernel. For newcomers that would like to learn more about the Linux kernel development, there is the kernelnewbies mailing list. This mailing list contains the basic kernel development questions. Additionally, there is an IRC channel where contributors can ask questions in real time. The Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) is where most discussions are announcements are made. The archives from each mailing list can be found in https://lore.kernel.org/lists.html.
Shuah Khan, a Linux Fellow, mentioned in an interview [4] that before contributing to the Linux Kernel it’s important to subscribe to the kernel-related mailing lists “to understand the dynamics”. Khan said “The process works like this: you walk into a room. People are gathering in small groups and are talking to each other. You have to break into one of these conversations. That is the process of watching the mailing lists, watching the interaction and learning from that before you start sending out a patch.”
Open Stack
OpenStack has many communication channels such as IRC channels for both public meetings and projects as well as mailing lists. The mailing lists are used to asynchronously communicate and share information, team communication, and cross-project communication. Additionally, mailing lists in Open Stacks are used to communicate with non-developer community members of OpenStack [5].
Gnome
IRC channels are one of the most important communication methods in Gnome. They are a google place to know what the community is talking about and also ask for help. There are many channels on Discourse including discussions about Gnome’s sub-projects, community-related topics, internationalization, etc. Similar to other communities, mailing lists can be used for discussing specific topics. Finally, PlanetGnome and GnomeNews can be used to follow the latest news of the project.
So, where does communication occur in open source projects?
As observed in our previous discussion, mailing lists seem to be the most used communication method. Previous work has also found that “mailing lists are the bread and butter of project communications” [11] and that “the developer mailing list is the primary communication channel for an OSS project” [12]. However, as we have previously mentioned, mailing lists are not the only communication channel used in OSS, and other channels (such as IRC channels and forums) also play an important role.
Guzzy et. al [10] mention that when more than one communication repository exists, the policy of most OSS is to transfer all official decisions and useful discussions to the mailing lists, so that they can later be retrieved. Thus, traceability and transparency of information is an important matter here.
The benefit of using mailing lists is that it is an asynchronous form of communication, and it is an easy resource to share information with the entire community. Additionally, mailing lists allow people that are in different timezones to engage, as well as people that have different levels of English proficiency may better manage it in text messages [5].
However, mailing lists might also have their disadvantages. Previous work [10] have found that developers have problems in maintaining awareness of each other’s work when the discussion is in the mailing lists. Additionally, recovering traceability links among different communication repositories might help researchers and community members to have a more complete picture of the development process.
What are the commons DOS and DON’TS when using OSS mailing lists?
Given that mailing lists are one of the common ways to communicate in open source projects, it is worth knowing how to communicate in mailing lists. Although each project has their own set or rules, there are some common conventions that should be followed.
DOS
Subject
- Prefix the subject with topic tags in square brackets. This makes email threads easier for readers to quickly categorize and decide what they should read. For example, OpenStack has a documentation [13] establishing how to prefix the subject, i.e., community members should use [docs] to address any kind of documentation discussions that are cross-projects and so on.
- Sometimes it’s appropriate to change the subject rather than start a new thread.
Formating
- Plain text: Send your email as plain text only! Please, don’t send HTML emails.
- Line wrapping: Lines should be wrapped at 72 characters or fewer.
Replies
- Always use inline replies, i.e., break the original message by replying each specific part of the message.
- When replying to long discussions, trim your message and leave only the relevant parts to the reply.
DON’TS
- Avoid cross-posting, i.e., posting the same message to many mailing lists at the same time.
- Avoid sending the wrong topic to the wrong mailing list. Make sure that your topic is the topic of the mailing list.
Setting up your email client
The Linux Kernel has a great documentation on how to setup different email clients according to the aforementioned rules.
How to minimize the harm caused by conflicts?
Even if the code of conduct is applied, conflicts might exist. Many actions can be taken in case of conflict, and here are some examples
1. Gather information about the situation
If someone has violated the code of conduct, you should carefully analyze the situation according to the experience working with that person [6]. It is important to read the past comments and interactions with that person so that you can have an unbiased perspective about what happened. Stephanie Zvan [7] has mentioned that the best way to avoid a conflict is to not get pulled into an argument. It is important to focus on what you need to do instead of getting sidetracked into dealing with someone else’s behaviors.
2. Take appropriate actions
Two ways to respond to the code of conduct violation is that the moderator of the community (i) in a kind way explain in public how the person’s behavior affected the community, or (ii) privately reach out to the person and explain how that behavior was negative [6].
“A code of conduct that isn’t (or can’t be) enforced is worse than no code of conduct at all: it sends the message that the values in the code of conduct aren’t actually important or respected in your community.” Ada Initiative
General tips
- Open source projects are in large part successful due to the collaborative nature of projects. Thus, start conversations that lead to collaboration. That means, give feedback, support each other’s communication, and share your ideas.
- There is no additional cost to being transparent and authentic with your community. In that way, it is easy to keep your team informed, empowered and focused on one specific goal or task.
About the author:
Isabella Ferreira is Advocate at TARS Foundation, a cloud-native open-source microservice foundation under the Linux Foundation.
References:
[3] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ContributeToUbuntu#Community_Communication
[4] https://thenewstack.io/how-to-begin-your-journey-as-a-contributor-to-the-linux-kernel/
[5] https://docs.openstack.org/project-team-guide/open-community.html
[7]
https://the-orbit.net/almostdiamonds/2014/04/10/so-youve-got-yourself-a-policy-now-what/
[10] Guzzi, Anja, et al. “Communication in open source software development mailing lists.” 2013 10th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR). IEEE, 2013.
[11] Fogel, Karl. Producing open source software: How to run a successful free software project. “ O’Reilly Media, Inc.”, 2005.
[12] Gutwin, Carl, Reagan Penner, and Kevin Schneider. “Group awareness in distributed software development.” Proceedings of the 2004 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work. 2004.
[13] https://docs.openstack.org/project-team-guide/open-community.html#mailing-lists
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