@ -55,78 +62,110 @@ This is also the project that I chose to do my HFOSS [bug fix](https://jrtechs.n
# Differences
This section explores the differences between the two projects.
It is important to note that there is not a once size fits all for open-source projects.
Just because one project has more/less of something does not necessarily mean that
one is better than the other.
The beauty of open-source is the ability of a project to take many shapes/sizes/forms.
This section explores the differences between the two projects. It is
important to note that there is not a once size fits all for
open-source projects. Just because one project has more/less of
something does not necessarily mean that one is better than the other.
The beauty of open-source is the ability of a project to take many
shapes/sizes/forms.
## Scope
There is no denying that on-my-zsh is a massive open-source project.
On-my-zsh is highly praised and recommended by people wanting to "rice" their terminal setup.
This project has 19k forks and 1.5k contributors... that is big.
On-my-zsh is highly praised and recommended by people wanting to
"rice" their terminal setup. This project has 19k forks and 1.5k
contributors... that is big.
Although there are a large number of contributors, most people don't have a huge role in the project. A lot of the contributors are adding themes to on-my-zsh and doing minor bug fixes.
Dispute not holding big roles, the large number of contributors suggests that it is relatively easy to become a part of this community.
On-my-zsh has received so many PR's for new themes that they asked people to [stop submitting](https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/wiki/External-themes) them and to create them as separate git repos with a specific naming convention so they are easy to search for.
Although there are a large number of contributors, most people don't
have a huge role in the project. A lot of the contributors are adding
themes to on-my-zsh and doing minor bug fixes. Dispute not holding big
roles, the large number of contributors suggests that it is relatively
easy to become a part of this community. On-my-zsh has received so
many PR's for new themes that they asked people to [stop
RITlug's website project is relatively new at 4 years old, but, like oh-my-zsh has remained active for its entire duration.
RITlug's website project is relatively new at 4 years old, but, like
oh-my-zsh has remained active for its entire duration.
## Governance
### Leadership
Determining the leadership is often hard for a project in the medium to small scale.
The issue isn't that there is absolutely no leadership, the issue is that the
leadership often isn't documented or is on such a small scale that it is trivial.
Larger projects like Fedora and Ubuntu have well-defined roles, etc for their project.
Smaller projects often don't have these levels of leadership and transparency.
I fall victim to this for all my projects on GitHub, the leadership is quite literally "me" and I'm making all the calls and I'm just managing the dozen or so people that I manage to get to work on my project.
Having this type of leadership is often bad because once the main contributor leaves, the project may die or fall apart.
As the current president of RITlug, I have particular insight into how RITlug operates its open-source project.
The leadership of the project shifts every year after public (to RIT students) elections.
There are typically between 4-6 eboard members per year.
It requires two members of eboard to approve a pull request for the website.
There is a special eboard role for managing projects, however, that role is often vacant and is just filled in my eboard members that have a familiarity for that project.
If the project is large enough like [TeleIRC](https://github.com/RITlug/teleirc), we allow that one to manage itself as a "team" with loose oversight from the eboard.
The RITlug website is solely maintained by the RITlug Eboard for administrative tasks such as weekly emails and posting talks.
Although we don't ever explicitly document the leadership of the project, it would be possible to figure out by reading the RITlug [runbook](http://runbook.ritlug.com/).
Opposed to RITlug which has a quasi-public leadership board, the upper leaderships for on-my-zsh can be traced back to the company Planet Argon.
This company is located in Portland and focuses on Ruby on Rails development as a consultant for commercial companies. Like many companies, this company has a large
footprint in [open-source projects](https://www.planetargon.com/open-source).
From public documentation, it is not clear how the on-my-zsh project is run.
Based on other projects, we can assume that the company appoints certain people to manage the project.
Determining the leadership is often hard for a project in the medium
to small scale. The issue isn't that there is absolutely no
leadership, the issue is that the leadership often isn't documented or
is on such a small scale that it is trivial. Larger projects like
Fedora and Ubuntu have well-defined roles, etc for their project.
Smaller projects often don't have these levels of leadership and
transparency. I fall victim to this for all my projects on GitHub, the
leadership is quite literally "me" and I'm making all the calls and
I'm just managing the dozen or so people that I manage to get to work
on my project. Having this type of leadership is often bad because
once the main contributor leaves, the project may die or fall apart.
As the current president of RITlug, I have particular insight into how
RITlug operates its open-source project. The leadership of the project
shifts every year after public (to RIT students) elections. There are
typically between 4-6 eboard members per year. It requires two members
of eboard to approve a pull request for the website. There is a
special eboard role for managing projects, however, that role is often
vacant and is just filled in my eboard members that have a familiarity
for that project. If the project is large enough like
[TeleIRC](https://github.com/RITlug/teleirc), we allow that one to
manage itself as a "team" with loose oversight from the eboard. The
RITlug website is solely maintained by the RITlug Eboard for
administrative tasks such as weekly emails and posting talks. Although
we don't ever explicitly document the leadership of the project, it
would be possible to figure out by reading the RITlug
[runbook](http://runbook.ritlug.com/).
Opposed to RITlug which has a quasi-public leadership board, the upper
leaderships for on-my-zsh can be traced back to the company Planet
Argon. This company is located in Portland and focuses on Ruby on
Rails development as a consultant for commercial companies. Like many
companies, this company has a large footprint in [open-source
projects](https://www.planetargon.com/open-source). From public
documentation, it is not clear how the on-my-zsh project is run. Based
on other projects, we can assume that the company appoints certain
people to manage the project.
### License
The code for both projects falls under the MIT license which is a permissive open source license. The RITlug website is more unique in that it has a creative commons license for
The code for both projects falls under the MIT license which is a
permissive open source license. The RITlug website is more unique in
that it has a creative commons license for
# Takeaways
When it comes to projects, no one size fits all.
In both projects that I looked at they had backing from a more established institution such as a student club or a company.
Future research in community architecture could dive deeper into how most open source communities layout their upper leadership and who funds the projects.
It is becoming more and more common to find open-source projects with large commercial backers.
When it comes to projects, no one size fits all. In both projects that
I looked at they had backing from a more established institution such
as a student club or a company. Future research in community
architecture could dive deeper into how most open source communities
layout their upper leadership and who funds the projects. It is
becoming more and more common to find open-source projects with large
