Community-Driven Software Development

I’ve been reflecting on my conversation with Nader Dabit currently building developer communities at Eigen Labs, and formerly with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and The Graph. What struck me most was how many of his insights we have been actively applying while building the developer + founder community at soonami.io GmbH. Here are the top takeaways I’ve been leaning on 👇 1/ Building a developer community is a marathon, not a sprint. Developers want to go where there’s traction, but traction doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, trust, and a lot of value creation. 2/ Transparency builds trust. Be open about the trade-offs of your platform. No tech is perfect. Developers appreciate honesty over hype. If they know what they’re working with, they can make informed decisions. 3/ Help developers whether they use your product or not. The best DevRel teams provide value beyond their own ecosystem. Answer questions, share knowledge, and be part of the broader developer journey. This goodwill always comes back. 4/ Meet developers where they are. Not every developer is hanging out on Twitter. Find them in Discord, Telegram, GitHub, hackathons, or niche forums. Engage where they feel comfortable, not where it's easiest for you. 5/ Hackathons: Not just about numbers, but long-term impact. Instead of attracting bounty hunters who leave after a quick win, structure your hackathons to support serious builders. Offer milestone-based funding, mentorship, and ecosystem support. 6/ Long-term DevRel isn’t about short-term metrics. It's not just about tracking engagement. It’s about relationship-building over months (or years). DevRel should create a ripple effect—one great project inspires others. 7/ Cross-functional collaboration is key. Building a developer community isn’t just a DevRel task. Marketing, engineering, and leadership must align to provide the best support for developers. 8/ One strong builder > 100 inactive users. It’s not about quantity. Even if just one project from your hackathon or community scales, it can change the entire ecosystem. 9/ Want to break into DevRel? Here’s Nader’s advice: 🔹 Deeply understand the product 🔹 Build relationships with internal teams 🔹 Focus on providing genuine value 10/ Final takeaway: Developer communities thrive on authenticity, support, and long-term thinking. It’s not about pushing a product, it’s about empowering people to build. What’s your biggest takeaway from this? Let’s discuss! 

#AiDays2025 Round Table : #Community Sourcing for low resource languages In an era where AI is fast shaping the contours of our digital future, VISWAM.AI initiative stands as a timely and transformational one. Their mission to build community-sourced Large Language Models (LLMs), grounded in India’s rich linguistic and cultural diversity, is not just pioneering—it’s redefining how inclusive and ethical AI should be built. By anchoring their work in community participation, linguistic preservation, and ethical co-creation, Viswam.ai offers a people-first approach to AI—moving beyond data extraction to cultural stewardship. Their ambition to mobilize 1 lakh community interns to collect data from underrepresented geographies across India is both bold and brilliant. This isn’t just about building better AI—it’s about building equity, agency, and cultural resilience through AI. 1. Linguistic Equity by Design In India, where linguistic hegemony often privileges English and Hindi, AI systems risk reinforcing this imbalance. The solution? Intentional design. Allocate equal engineering and validation efforts to low-resource languages. Ethical AI must be built on informed consent, community ownership, and fair compensation—because data is not just input, it’s identity and heritage. 2. Decentralized Internship Model By decentralizing AI development, we bridge the urban-rural digital divide. This model should focus on: Capacity building through training in ethics and digital literacy Inclusivity by involving women, Dalit and Adivasi youth Localized platforms using mobile-first tools in native languages Partnerships with Swecha, local NGOs, and institutions serve as trust bridges to ensure mentorship and sustainability. 3. Tools for Low-Resource Languages Many Indian languages are oral-first, with complex dialects and sparse corpora. Community-driven solutions—like collecting voice datasets from folklore, and crowdsourcing annotation—are key. Elders, poets, and storytellers become linguistic technologists, preserving not just language but legacy. 4. Trust & Transparency Bias in AI is structural. To mitigate it: Include diverse dialects and accents in training Conduct bias testing and community validation Promote explainable AI with local language dashboards and storytelling What’s Next? A living white paper on ethics, governance, and technical guidelines A roadmap for the internship program, with toolkits and impact metrics Collaboration with literary and linguistic organizations to enrich model depth VISWAM.AI is planting seeds for an AI movement rooted in language justice, data sovereignty, and community wisdom. Let’s co-create systems that don’t just understand our languages—but respect our voices. DC* Chaitanya Chokkareddy Kiran Chandra Ramesh Loganathan Centific

I never planned to become an open-source contributor. It started as a side project during my PhD - and it changed how I think about community, collaboration, and impact. When I first started building #overviewR during my doctoral research, it was a simple tool to automate descriptive data overviews. I never imagined it would evolve into a published open-source package, spark the creation of #overviewpy for Python users (still in its baby shoes 👶), and, most importantly, a feeling of community. Through this experience, I've learned a few things: 🔍 Software development is rarely a solo act. It's so much more fun doing it together! Early feedback from peers and the community shaped features I hadn’t considered and helped us prioritize what matters for end users. 🌱 Open source is about more than code. It's about creating a space where ideas are shared, improved, and made accessible. It's were mistakes are lessons and collaboration is driving the progress. 🛠️ Community amplifies impact. Watching others use and contribute to the tools has been the most rewarding part of the journey. It also reinforced that connecting people is just as important as connecting data. 💡 If you’ve ever thought about contributing to #OSS: start small. A typo fix, a suggestion, opening a #GitHub issue - it all matters and adds up. Some ideas to get you started: 👩💻 scikit-learn hosts community sprints: https://lnkd.in/eeGu_aUK 📋 Posit PBC's community contributed cheat sheets: https://lnkd.in/eCM3m2kz 🧠 IBM's AIF360 framework: https://lnkd.in/esJpEjdY I'm sure there are many more good starting points. If you know of additional ways to contribute to open source software, let’s collect them in the comments 😊 #OpenSource #DataScience #RStats #Python #CommunityBuilding #RLadies #PyLadies

Metcalfe’s Law against Brooks’ Law Guido van Rossum, Python’s creator, recently said: “We have a huge community, but relatively few people, relatively speaking, are contributing meaningfully.” This highlights a paradox. Software thrives on the network effect, or Metcalfe’s Law, where a system’s value scales with the square of its users. Linux excels because its vast user base fuels adoption, documentation, and compatibility everywhere. But larger teams don’t build better software—often the reverse. Brooks’ Law, from Fred Brooks’ The Mythical Man-Month, shows that adding people increases communication overhead, slowing progress. The Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) also applies: a small minority drives most meaningful contributions. Great software often stems from a single visionary or a small, cohesive team, not a crowd. The network effect applies primarily to users, not necessarily to creators.

Community ≠ democracy. I see this misconception all the time in open source. People think being “community-driven” means every decision gets put to a vote. That’s not how good products get built. At Directus, we try to be obsessively transparent. We discuss major decisions openly (like our license change a few years ago), and genuinely listen to feedback. But at the end of the day? Someone has to make the final call. Here’s what I’ve learned: + Communities are great at identifying problems, terrible at prioritizing solutions + The loudest voices aren’t always representative of your user base + Sometimes you have to say no to popular requests that would hurt the product long-term + Vision requires direction, not consensus Apparently this is called “benevolent dictatorship”... and honestly, it works. I’d rather disappoint 100 vocal users today than build something that disappoints 10,000 quiet users tomorrow. The best community-driven projects have strong leadership that knows when to listen and when to lead. Steve Jobs didn’t focus group the iPhone. He knew that “design by committee” often results in bland, uninspired projects but real innovation requires bold choices and stark contrasts. As that famous Henry Ford quote goes: "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." Sometimes the most community-friendly thing you can do is make the hard decisions yourself.

𝗦𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲. 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲. Open source projects don’t fail because of bad technology. They fail because contributors burn out, communities fracture, or energy fades. Technical debt matters. But so does 𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗱𝗲𝗯𝘁: PRs without response → contributors feel invisible. Harsh reviews → contributors stop showing up. No clear roadmap → contributors drift away. As a maintainer or leader, your job isn’t just writing great software. It’s creating conditions where people 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 to keep showing up. That means: ✅ Balancing vision with flexibility ✅ Saying thank you as often as saying “LGTM” ✅ Mentoring the next wave of maintainers ✅ Building processes that survive you ✅ Remembering that community health is a feature, not an afterthought The hardest part of OSS leadership isn’t scaling code. It’s scaling trust, empathy, and continuity. If we care for the people behind the code, the code will take care of itself. 🔔 I’ll be sharing more reflections on 𝘀𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽. would love to hear your stories too.

I see so many companies treat their Community like a support channel or a "nice-to-have" space. That's a huge missed opportunity. They're failing to tap into their most powerful resource. Here's the truth: Community-Led Growth (CLG) is the future of customer retention and brand loyalty. It turns your best users into product advocates who drive growth for you. You need to shift your mindset: CLG is not about managing chat. It's about facilitating passion and letting users define your product's direction. Notion is the best example of this bottom-up approach working at scale. Their strategy is simple: 👉Spot the Superfan: Notion recognized that users loved the product so much they were already creating unprompted communities on Reddit, Facebook, and YouTube. 👉Build on Their Ideas: Notion's team didn't try to centralize everything. Instead, they built official programs to support organic user trends, turning ideas like user-made templates into the official Template Gallery. 👉Reward Ownership: They created the Ambassador and Certification programs. This allows "superfans" to monetize their Notion knowledge as consultants, giving them early access and a direct line to the product team. This creates a virtuous cycle: Users collaborate → they educate new users → they provide free product ideas → they feel a deep sense of ownership in the brand. The result? A community that markets, supports, and scales the product globally, far beyond what the internal team could do alone. Are you building on top of your community's organic ideas, or are you just trying to control the conversation? 👇 #CommunityLedGrowth #ProductManagement #SaaS

💡 Meta’s OSPO: Driving Innovation and Community Engagement Meta has built one of the most influential OSPOs in the world through code and by shaping the cultural & technical foundations of modern development. Projects like PyTorch, React, and GraphQL have redefined how we build, scale, and collaborate. In terms of OSPO headcount, most likely the smaller globally, with just a few individuals, as open source is embedded in the fabric of the company, and this is how Meta rolls right now. Some standout elements of Meta’s open source strategy: 🧠 AI at Scale with PyTorch: PyTorch, born at Meta, hosted in The Linux Foundation under its own PyTorch Foundation, is a cornerstone of the global AI/ML community. It is THE framework of choice for research & production from startups to hyperscalers. 🖼 Frontend Revolution with React: React changed the game in web development, introducing a declarative and component-based UI model. 🔎 Smarter APIs with GraphQL: Meta launched GraphQL, now under the GraphQL Foundation, providing a more efficient, flexible alternative to REST. It’s now an industry standard. 🌐 Infrastructure-Grade Open Source: From Presto, now in the Presto Foundation, to HHVM, Meta’s open source stack is built for the scale of its internal infrastructure and shared with the world. These tools power massive data workloads and inspire contributions across enterprise and research sectors. 🌱 Community Building and Developer Enablement Meta backs its code with community: ☑️ Developer conferences ☑️ Grants & funding for ecosystem projects ☑️ Educational content, docs, and tutorials to onboard new contributors 🛡 Governance and OSPO Culture: Meta’s OSPO leads with strategic alignment and sustainability: ☑️ Ensures license compliance & risk mitigation at scale ☑️ Empowers internal devs with contribution pathways and tooling ☑️ Fosters long-term project health 🔭 Looking Ahead: Expect Meta’s OSPO to go deeper on: ☑️ Open AI research tools & public datasets ☑️ Sustainable computing and energy-efficient frameworks ☑️ Web3 and decentralized infra ☑️ IoT-ready open source integration ☑️ Open cloud and edge-native platforms Meta’s OSPO is an innovation engine and community amplifier. Few companies have shaped the open source landscape in recent years as fundamentally as Meta. To view the scope of OSS efforts at Meta, check out: "Meta Open Source: 2024 by the numbers": https://lnkd.in/dK45KsrJ 🧭 This post is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the role of OSPOs in driving strategic value through open source. Tomorrow, I am covering Google. Tune in! 🔁 If you find this post valuable, please share it with your network. #OpenSource #OSPO #OpenStandards #DevRel #OpenSourceStrategy The Linux Foundation Linux Foundation Europe Linux Foundation Japan TODO (OSPO) Group OpenChain Project ⚠️ This post represents my views and does not reflect those of my current or past employers. ⚠️

🎄🎁 Advent of Open Source - Day 11/24: conda-forge Contributions 🐍 (See my intro post: https://lnkd.in/gNaczs59) Unlike other projects in this advent calendar, I want to celebrate being part of something much bigger: the Conda-Forge community, where thousands of volunteers maintain the packages that power scientific Python. 📖 Origin Story I started with conda-forge in 2016 during my PhD work with Kwant, a quantum transport simulator. Installing it was a nightmare - it required system-level numerical libraries like MUMPS and Scotch which required a special config file to link. When I discovered conda-forge and its mission to make scientific software installation painless, I knew this was the solution! 🔧 Technical Highlights Over the past 8 years, I've maintained over 40 build recipes, including: • Major scientific packages like VTK, MUMPS, and Scotch • Quantum physics tools like Qsim, Qcodes, and Kwant • Visualization libraries like HoloViews • Plus all the packages I've authored myself The real magic of conda-forge is its infrastructure: • Automated builds across Linux, macOS, and Windows • Strict dependency version management • Comprehensive CI/CD pipelines • Community-driven quality control 📊 Impact What makes conda-forge truly special is how initial contributions turn into collaborative efforts. I've experienced this firsthand: after creating the initial MUMPS feedstock, 25 other contributors joined in, each bringing their unique expertise. A recent experience also illustrates this: I added NVIDIA CUDA support to both Google's Qsim and IBM's Cirq packages. Shortly after, Leo Fang, an engineer from NVIDIA who knows CUDA far better than I do, stepped up and made significant improvements. This is the beauty of open source - experts naturally gravitate to where they can make the biggest impact. This collaborative approach solves a problem I've encountered at several companies: the tendency to maintain complicated build systems internally with custom hacks. Instead of each organization reinventing the wheel, conda-forge provides a shared platform where: • Maintenance burden is distributed • Expert knowledge flows freely • Build practices are standardized • Infrastructure is public and reusable 🎯 Challenges and Solutions • Keeping up with upstream changes • Managing complex dependency trees • Cross-platform compatibility • Coordinating with upstream maintainers 💡 Lessons Learned 1. Community effort beats solo work for infrastructure 2. Automation is crucial for reliability 3. Small contributions compound over time 4. Being part of something bigger is rewarding Want to contribute to scientific Python? Check out conda-forge.org and https://lnkd.in/g4Hg7AcA! #OpenSource #Python #Scientific #Programming #Community

Just took a huge leap of faith and open-sourced our codebase! 🚀 It's been a wild ride, and I want to share why we made this decision. Three years ago, we were struggling to gain traction in the crowded access gateway space. Our tool was the #1 product by far, but adoption was slow. We knew we had to do something drastic. That's when it hit us – what if we embraced radical transparency? We spent months debating, planning, and frankly, sweating over the implications. But last week, we finally pulled the last trigger. It started with a free SaaS plan, then free self-hosted, free open-binary, and now, we're also open-source! Here's why we believe this is a game-changer: • Community-driven innovation: By opening our codebase, we're tapping into the collective genius of developers worldwide. The improvements and new features that have already poured in are mind-blowing! 🤯 • Trust and credibility: In an era of data breaches and privacy concerns, showing our cards builds instant trust. Customers can see exactly what they're getting. • Faster bug fixes: More eyes on the code mean quicker identification and resolution of issues. Our response time has already improved by 40%! • Talent attraction: Top developers want to work on exciting, open projects. • Ecosystem growth: Third-party integrations and plugins are flourishing, expanding our tool's capabilities beyond what we ever imagined. Of course, it hasn't all been smooth sailing. We've had to adapt our business model, breakdown features and paywall our unique value props. But the energy and momentum we've gained far outweigh the challenges. And the surprising outcome: the features in the open-source package beat enterprise plans of all competitors. To my fellow tech leaders: consider the power of openness. It's scary, yes. But the potential for growth and innovation is enormous. Have you experimented with open-sourcing in your company? What were your experiences? Let's discuss in the comments!