A roadmap: How to open source your repository
Room B | Wed 22 Jan 1:30 p.m.–2:15 p.m.
Presented by
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Mike Jang
@theMikeJang
https://ai-techwriter.com
Mike is a Principal Technical Writer for NGINX (part of F5) He creates clear and engaging documentation for developers and sysadmins. He's created authoritative content in Linux, security, and Identity Management. He's also a Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE v5) and an enthusiastic speaker at industry events.
He built a docs-as-code documentation practice from scratch at Cobalt.io, where he also developed a voice and tone style guide for user experiences, taught non-writers to create better UI text, and set up a paid open source documentation contribution program. At GitLab, he guided the documentation efforts for the Manage Stage and developer content. At ForgeRock, he gained seven years of experience writing about Identity Management.
Mike's mission is to share his passion for new software and to help users achieve their goals with the rigor of a technical writer.
Mike Jang
@theMikeJang
https://ai-techwriter.com
Abstract
This is open source done right. Open sourcing existing software is more than just "pushing a button," It involves serious preparation, including:
- Choosing reasons to go open source
- Auditing security
- Scrubbing PII
- Lawyers and the license
- Deciding what to do about commits
- Setting ground rules for contributors
- Sharing with your community
- Follow-up hackathons
When people look at open source software, they first look at documentation. When open source developers find a promising project, they expect to get involved. One part of the process is with open source software.
Attendees will come out of this session with:
- Access to a template repository
- A checklist to follow, which addresses legal, security, and community requirements
- An understanding of the work required to move to open source
NGINX has a long history of open source with their basic web / proxy server product. This talk details what the NGINX team went through to open source their main documentation repository. A few of their documents were already open source, which set a precedent. It was not a "simple" matter to bring this process to all NGINX documentation.
This is open source done right. Open sourcing existing software is more than just "pushing a button," It involves serious preparation, including: - Choosing reasons to go open source - Auditing security - Scrubbing PII - Lawyers and the license - Deciding what to do about commits - Setting ground rules for contributors - Sharing with your community - Follow-up hackathons When people look at open source software, they first look at documentation. When open source developers find a promising project, they expect to get involved. One part of the process is with open source software. Attendees will come out of this session with: - Access to a template repository - A checklist to follow, which addresses legal, security, and community requirements - An understanding of the work required to move to open source NGINX has a long history of open source with their basic web / proxy server product. This talk details what the NGINX team went through to open source their main documentation repository. A few of their documents were already open source, which set a precedent. It was not a "simple" matter to bring this process to all NGINX documentation.