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

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

Simplify & improve contribution guides

Improve contribution tooling

Product groups focus

Unified Workflow

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.

Define contributor value proposition

Developer badges & certification

Contributor recognition

Contributor career advancement

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 first-time contributor inclusion

  • Why: Improving the newcomer experience to GitLab includes more contributors at different experience levels. A better first-time experience for a contributor can improve chances of return contributions.
  • DRI: Contributor Success team

Track internal DEI group participation

  • Why: By tracking GitLab participation in DEI groups and initiatives, we can increase our team’s awareness on diversity, equity and inclusion best practices. We can also reach more potential contributors at external groups.
  • DRI: Developer Relations team

Incentivize contributors at qualifying events

Establish contributor resource groups

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

Scale contributor events

Community office hours

Increase social presence

Scale the Community

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

Create a governance model & allow community participation in decision-making

  • Why: A decision making model that works for the entire community allows us to make decisions faster. It allows wider community members with multiple domain expertise to make decisions on GitLab changes. It allows the maintainers to have the final sign-off. It lets the community be in the driving seat and fosters growth.
  • Epic: https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/9079
  • DRI: Contributor Success team

Returning & Frequent Contributors

Foster more collaboration

Contribution specialization

  • Why: To surface contribution opportunities tailored to tech professions, implement frontend, backend, UX, Test and etc specialization in contribution types and MR coaches. This also allows a more aligned interaction between contributor and MR coaches of the same specialization.
  • Epic: https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/9082
  • DRI: Contributor Success team
Last modified December 9, 2024: Update DRI for improving contributor tooling (46704307)
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