Meeting Minutes 2017-08-01

Meeting Minutes 2017-08-01

Governance Update

Governance document mostly done
Mozilla and Eclipse plan on joining CHAOSS
We are still trying to connect with Wikimedia
We are also talking to industry members
What is the process for declaring a metric official?
- What process do we want to get input?
Currently, the four metrics are the ones we have heard the most
- We do not have a formal process at this point
Do we want to have versioning?
- No versioning would signal that metrics are constantly changing and differently understood in different contexts
  - Metrics are not software - does versioning make sense?
- If there is a proposal to add a metric group, then we might have a discussion or process to add it
- For reference implementations, they need to be able to work from a stable metrics version
- We could establish a stable version for implementers and continue working on the metrics. Similar to stable and developer branches
- The stable version that gets implemented will lead to feedback that informs the future development
- It would be good to have a stable version of the metrics specification for implementation
How do we get consensus for establishing a stable metrics version?
- That needs to be decided
- Discussion will continue on the mailing list

Open Source Summit NA Update on BoF session and additional break-out session

We have a BoF at the Open Source Summit North America
- Monday, September 11 • 5:40pm - 6:20pm - http://sched.co/BCsP
Have another room for 2 hours the next day
- Tuesday, September 12 • 2pm - 4pm
- We will likely continue the conversation from the BoF
Open Source Summit Europe in Prague: We have a room for 4 hours
- Tuesday, October 24 • 9am - 1pm
- Possibly start with overview of CHAOSS and then break-out session?
- Topics to be decided.
See Ray's email: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/oss-health-metrics/2017-August/000063.html

Other??

How did the current four metrics come to be?
- Project Diversity and Inclusion is a metric that many people expressed an interest in. For example, if three large corporate members drop out of the community within one week, that is a strong signal. Mozilla expressed interest in lining this metric up with their Internet Health report (https://internethealthreport.org/).
- Project Growth - Maturity - Decline answers whether our community or project growing. This question is asked by board members and many people. However, it is a loaded question because the context determines how metrics are understood and what metrics are used.
- Project Risk is useful for mergers and acquisitions between projects and for companies. To what extent does a project have good hygiene? This question is important to the Core Infrastructure Initiative. How safe is a project to use or are there hidden risks? With regards to licensing, this metric aligns with the work of the SPDX group.
- Project Position with OSS Ecosystem is important because projects may be used by many projects downstream. The libraries.io project can show where a project sits within the ecosystem. How is a project used and what does it use?
- Each of these metrics is a composite of smaller activity metrics
- The choice of current metrics are opportunistic and when other metrics are suggested, we can discuss and add them
- Important: the metrics have to derive value or they will not be used
  - Value is in the eye of the user: the context matters
  - The ecosystem has different actors: developers may have different choices what looks as a better developer environment; a user of the ecosystem may be more interested in the popularity and that it is actively maintained. What is indicative of health is a factor of purpose and use scenario
  - We have to talk to different stakeholders, like the Symphony Foundation, to establish ground truth
    - https://metrics.symphony.foundation - Bitergia dashboard for Symphony Foundation
    - Many good production metrics
    - No consumption metrics - difficult to obtain - Philosophy: growth starts with consumption
How is the current list of activity metrics build?
- Several strategies informed the list:
  - Research and conversations with practitioners
  - The list is incomplete and suggestions are welcome
- A missing metric is: Effect of gender diversity: effect of seniority on teams
- The activity metrics can be a long list of metrics 'for metrics sake'
  - Not all metrics have to be used in value-oriented metrics
  - We may list all possible metrics and keep track of why it is not used or how it could be misused

Attenance

Christian Cmehil-Warn
Derek Howard
Georg Link
Josianne Marsan
Kate Stewart
Matt Germonprez
Peter Monks
Ray Paik
Sean Goggins
Tom Mens

Table of Contents

Meeting Minutes 2017-08-01

Governance Update

Open Source Summit NA Update on BoF session and additional break-out session

Other??

Attenance