Open Source Growth Strategy

Strategy

We will be executing in 5 key areas in support of the company’s broader dual-flywheels strategy to attain more contributions. The 5 key areas together are the building blocks of our contributor & contribution 10x acceleration strategy.

flowchart LR
  subgraph moreContributions["More Contributions"]
    contributorIncrease["Contributor Increase"]
    contributionIncrease["Contribution Increase"]
    bothIncrease["Contributor & Contribution Increase"]
    increaseValue("Increase Contribution Value")
    improveJourney("Improve Contributor Journey")
    fosterDiversity("Foster Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion")
    scaleCommunity("Scale the Community")
    expandOutreach("Expand Outreach")
    scaleCommunity-->improveJourney
    scaleCommunity-->increaseValue
    scaleCommunity-->fosterDiversity
    expandOutreach-->scaleCommunity
    increaseValue-->contributionIncrease
    improveJourney-->contributorIncrease
    fosterDiversity-->bothIncrease
  end
  style moreContributions fill:#FFF, stroke:#9370DB, stroke-dasharray: 5 5
  style contributionIncrease fill:#9370DB,stroke:#9370DB,stroke-width:10px
  style contributorIncrease fill:#9370DB,stroke:#9370DB,stroke-width:10px
  style bothIncrease fill:#9370DB,stroke:#9370DB,stroke-width:10px
  style improveJourney color:#6b4fbb, stroke:#9370DB
  style increaseValue color:#6b4fbb, stroke:#9370DB
  style fosterDiversity color:#6b4fbb, stroke:#9370DB
  style expandOutreach color:#6b4fbb, stroke:#9370DB
  style scaleCommunity color:#6b4fbb, stroke:#9370DB
  click improveJourney "./#improve-contributor-journey" _self
  click increaseValue "./#increase-contribution-value" _self
  click fosterDiversity "./#foster-diversity-equity-and-inclusion" _self
  click expandOutreach "./#expand-outreach" _self
  click scaleCommunity "./#scale-the-community" _self

Current focus

We’re prioritizing these 5 key items to maximize our impact within our current capacity. While all initiatives are valuable, this focused approach allows us to drive meaningful change more effectively.

Improve Contributor Journey

Provide an outstanding, highly efficient and fast contributor experience, from onboarding to getting a change merged. One of the tactics is to reduce contribution stumbling blocks to make the contributor journey more efficient. These stumbling blocks will be identified through gathering feedback from wider community contributors, product teams and GitLab Team Members on contribution friction.

Reduce Open Community MR Age

  • Why: Improve the speed of contribution to production by reducing Open community MR Age (OCMA) & review time. We have identified product groups with the highest OCMA. Analysis and improvements are needed to address product groups with the biggest opportunity. In addition to improving MR review and gathering feedback.
  • DRI: Contributor Success team

Product & engineering alignment

Simplify & improve contribution guides

  • Why: Make contribution guides easy to navigate. Our current contribution guides are fragmented and can be hard for new contributors to navigate and understand.
  • DRI: Developer Relations team

Improve contribution tooling

Increase Contribution Value

Incentivize, attract and retain contributors by providing a compelling value and regular recognition of contributors for their work. Contributor career advancement materials and awards.

Create a compelling contributor value proposition

  • Why: We need a clear definition of what drives people to contribute to GitLab and to present a compelling value proposition for increasing code contribution. One of the programs to drive this challenge is our Co-Create program for customers.
  • DRI: Developer Relations team

Contributor recognition & advancement system

  • Why: In open source projects, contributors are motivated not only by solving bugs or adding features but also by gaining experience and building their online presence. This can be solved through levelling-up, badging or other incentivizing systems. In addition, providing sustained and impactful recognition to recognize & retain our contributors. Increase frequency and targeted recognition to types and persona of contributors
  • DRI: Contributor Success team

Foster Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Center diversity, equity, and inclusion within our open source community relations and our wider community of contributors. Reach larger audiences of top contributors and offer more equitable opportunities to contribute.

Align with open source community DEI initiatives

  • Why: Aligning with open source communities practicing DEI initiatives will offer GitLab more ideas on reaching new contributors and signal our commitment to DEI to potential contributors.
  • DRI: Developer Relations team & Contributor Success team

Improve contributor inclusion

  • Why: To improve the contributor experience for newcomers and returning contributors, and meet contributors at different experience levels. We can improve the changes of a contributor returning by creating a more inclusive experience for them.
  • DRI: Contributor Success team

Expand Outreach

Increase awareness with content and events to drive large amounts of contributors. Our outreach efforts so far have been limited. A proactive and focused effort to bring awareness and drive members from external communities will be required. Engineering to work alongside Developer Relations in expanded outreach events.

Increase contribution backlog exposure

  • Why: Contributing as a new member to a massive project can be overwhelming, which can lead to analysis paralysis and potentially losing contributors. We should offer a lens into a discoverable, sizable set of issues we can direct newcomers to. Consider using established 3rd party platforms.
  • DRI: Developer Relations team

Scale contributor events

Community office hours & community pairing

  • Why: We need to scale office hour calls and our community pairing sessions that have traditionally been a unique opportunity for product groups to provide support, guidance to code contributors as well as gather feedback.
  • DRI: Developer Relations team & Contributor Success team

Increase social presence

  • Why: Increase our social media presence beyond the currently limited mediums (Twitter, Discord), which will allow us to tap into existing developer communities.
  • DRI: Developer Relations team

Scale the Community

Leverage the full-time customer contributor model and create wider community teams for sustainable growth.

Returning & Frequent Contributors

  • Why: Increased contribution by motivating recurring contributions from organizations that use or extend GitLab, such as customers, partners and OSS communities. Reward those that achieve that status with GitLab benefits that are valuable to the individual and the organization.
  • DRI: Developer Relations team & Contributor Success team

Non-code contributions

  • Why: Our userbase is made of a lot of different personas who each can make valuable contributions and improve GitLab. Creating design proposals, code reviews, triaging our issues or facilitating healthy discussions between all actors involved helps us achieve our goals faster. In addition, recognizing non-code contributions such as helping GitLab with promoting the product, our events or other ways to contribute should be recognized and celebrated.
  • DRI: Contributor Success team

Foster more collaboration

  • Why: We would like to depart from having contributors work single-handedly and create a team that can do more together.
  • DRI: Contributor Success team
Last modified January 8, 2025: Remove trailing spaces (c104140c)
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