#fosscomm11
Community Driven Development

May 7th, 2011 - Patras

Mark Boas (@maboa)

happyworm.com

jPlayer.org

jPlayer - Our little bit of OSS


  • ☆ Media Library that sits above jQuery
  • ☆ Dual GPL / MIT License
  • ☆ HTML5 with Flash fallback
  • ☆ Started May 2009
  • ☆ 1085 Community Members (Google Group)
  • ☆ 90,000 visits last month
  • ☆ 11,000 downloads last month

Visit jPlayer.org for more info.

How has Community helped Us?

Encouragement

Direction

Feedback

Testing

Promotion

Or at least how we built ours ...

Website


  • ✿ Simple and light
  • ✿ Concise description
  • ✿ Download
  • ✿ Documentation
  • ✿ Examples
  • ✿ Contact

Social Media


Initial promotion...


Did not spam (overly ☺). Luckily it went viral.

Provide a Forum



Next step was to create a forum to :
  • ✿ Provide support
  • ✿ Encourage discussion
  • ✿ Let people help themselves
  • ✿ Show off
We went with Google Groups.

Once your seedlings are planted, just add love and water regularly.

Building up momentum


Next steps :
  • ✿ Iterate rapidly
  • ✿ React to feedback
  • ✿ Provide fanatical support
  • ✿ Improve documentation
  • ✿ Give developers a platform
  • ✿ Dog food regularly
  • ✿ Tweet
  • ✿ Retweet

Involve the Community at every level. You are nothing without Community.

Interacting with Community and Users




Things that worked for us:
  • ✿ Solving problems
  • ✿ Showing encouragement
  • ✿ Showing appreciation
  • ✿ Being nice
  • ✿ Being ourselves

Remove your ego from the equation, lock it up and throw away the key.

Being egoless means ...


  • ✿ Aggressively seeking out negative feedback
  • ✿ Being thick skinned
  • ✿ Ignoring compliments / flattery
  • ✿ Not getting involved in flamewars
  • ✿ Backing down when you're wrong
  • ✿ Giving credit where credit is due
  • ✿ Viewing competition as co-conspirators

Community contribution is the ultimate return.

Types of Community Contribution


  • ✿ Feedback
  • ✿ Support
  • ✿ Direction
  • ✿ Testing
  • ✿ Promotion
  • ✿ Donations
  • ✿ Code

All types of contribution are important but when people start contributing code they take ownership.

Encourage Code Contribution


  • ✿ Make it easy (github)
  • ✿ Be grateful for any code
  • ✿ Reach out to developers
  • ✿ Start talking (in realtime) (IRC)
  • ✿ Make key contributors part of the team
  • ✿ Credit everyone!
  • ✿ Let go a little, your baby is growing up ☺

We are just really at this stage now with jPlayer.

Fruits of your Labour


If you're in OSS for the money, you're probably in the wrong business.

Other reasons :
  • ✿ Creating communities is fun and satisfying
  • ✿ You will meet interesting people
  • ✿ Gain respect from your peers
  • ✿ Stretch yourself
  • ✿ Improve your life skills
  • ✿ Clients likely to view you as an expert in your field
  • ✿ Work on contracts you enjoy
  • ✿ Warm and fuzzies

I've been Mark Boas @maboa markb@happyworm.com jPlayer.org and ....... Thanks!

Credits


Photos : Herbert, Stéfan Le Dû, --Tico--, Eric n6oim, William Neuheisel, Kris, Nicolas Vigier, liz west, Gene Han, DOT