Flock 2025 Open Source Mentorship: Crafting Communities, Creating Leaders

Hello folks. Can you hear me all right? Yes. Okay. So hi, I am Samyak. >> And hey, I'm Nikita. >> And we are here to present a talk on open source mentorship, crafting community, and creating leaders. >> But before we start, let's have a quick introduction. >> Who are we? I am Samyak. I am a Fedora engineer. I am using Fedora from last four five releases. Before that, I started my open source contribution from Debian and now I'm in Fedora and I cook when I am not working. >> Okay, so this is actually my second Flock. I'm Nikita. So right now I'm a software engineer and I work for embedded systems, device drivers, and basically IoT stuff. But my journey in Fedora started as an outreach intern in fact during the second year of my college back in 2022 and I contributed to the Fedora badges design project and I continue to contribute to the design team. So for example, this year's Flock t-shirt, as you see, that's my design. >> Okay, let's move on. So what are we going to talk about today? And you might be bored with the presentation that just went already. So I'm going to keep it short and we are going to talk about discovering what mentorship actually means, why mentorship actually matters in open source world, and how we can actually like make new comers stick to the open source communities while we do those mentorship. We can we also going to tie it out tie it up with how Fedora Fedora do mentorship and how it can be improved. Okay. So yes, we are here to put a dent in the universe, otherwise why be even here? And you see I wrote Steve Jobs and many of you you are going to kill me because why I am quoting and Steve Jobs at open source conference, but like this was the first book that I ever read and this quote stayed with me. You might wonder why mentorship. I believe mentorship can dent the universe, can dent the community and that's how the community becomes larger and bigger. It's not just about teaching or learning, it's about building uh people together making people come together, building a community, empowering individuals and shipping the open source projects. Let's dive in a little bit. The power of mentorship. When we talk about mentorship, it's easier to think that we are just going to do a like a pull request, do a code or like we are going to we are just going to submit a doc to a to a to a open source community, but it's not. It's so much more than that. Mentorship it's about shaping people, about creating confidence, it's about creating directions and belonging. So I I'll say it from my own experience to be honest. Back when I was I was a second year's college student, I was a typical computer science nerd acing my academics, going through all the motions of theory of computations, numbers and everything. But what I was actually doing, I was just doing things on paper. Like I was not able to relate that to an actual world problems. Uh that's when a friend who was contributing to Debian introduced me to the open source community. At first, I was very much hesitant. I did not even know how to say hi on IRC. Like I was like what, 16 years old when I started? And I was like, "Oh my god, like is just saying hi uh will be enough or like should I need to say more?" And I deleted that text three times. But then that friend who I can call a mentor now, acted as a mentor and helped me get into those uh get into that community. But that friend and along with the mentors that I got into Debian, I was able to slowly uh get into the community, started packaging and finally I did my GSoC in Debian that year. I I my my project was actually package cotton. That was a huge movement and followed that I actually spoke at a conference at Debian conference and that was my first talk ever with full of contributors. So now the person who was actually afraid of saying hi was giving a conference giving a talk at a conference. So like that experience gave me the courage to explore further and now I'm actually a I'm Fedora project actually welcomed me and I'm releasing Fedora now. It's like who would have imagined 5 6 years down the line that I would have done that. Wow. And that's what that's what the power of mentorship is. Like as Lee said, like through others we become ourselves. Okay. I need to go through this and here I am. So what mentorship is and what mentorship is not. We often confuse mentor to being a coach, manager, or your sponsor, or your personal fixer. That hey like you did something and your your mentor will come to fix you up. No. A mentor is not there to solve your problems but to give you a path forward to it. It's basically like an like you can just say that open source like coming to an open source community is a fog and it lot of things to do but your mentor is going to help you to find your own path forward. Uh he is they are not going to actually like tell you do this and do that. You have to make your own path forward. For me my first mentor did not they told me to like like do a like work on a get command or something. They told me like this is how it's done. This is the culture and this is how you're going to get started with that and I made my own path forward. So it's not about the control. It's about the growth and growing together. Why mentorship meant matters in an open source world. Like it's a lot of things written there but I'm going to like I with my own research over the years I have made it for four points. It accelerates onboarding, it builds stronger communities, it enhances contributor retention and it drives innovations. When you are new to a project, basically, everything feels so overwhelming. The tools, the workflows, and even the culture. Good mentorship actually cuts help you to cut through those confusions and like let you pass forward through those. Mentorship also is not just about connections. It fostered inclusion, collaborations, and knowledge sharing. Finally, uh like it also enhances contributor retention. So, for example, if if I would have don't get gotten a mentor in Debian, I would have just stopped like what I would have never like started to work with an open source community in the first place. So, because of that one mentor, I am now a contributor of five open source community and like that's a big thing, I would say. Like one one person changed my life. Finally, uh mentorship also helps you to drive the innovations. Uh and finally, uh when experienced contributors guide new minds, it creates a space for collaboration. So, whether you're guiding someone through their first first pull request or helping them or you're helping them speak at a conference, remember, you are making a dent and you're telling them you can do better. Uh so, you're not just growing contributors, you're growing those leaders. >> So, one of the mentorship initiatives that Fedora participates in is Outreachy as we all know, of course. So, Outreachy is organized by the Software Freedom Conservancy and it provides internships for people of any background uh who face underrepresentation, systemic bias, or discrimination uh in technical industry of wherever they might be situated. So, in the recent years, uh Software Freedom Conservancy has really focused on marketing Outreachy on social media and that has led to a great popularity explosion, especially amongst the college peers. Um so, Outreachy happens in three main stages. The first one is the essay round, then we go to the contribution, and finally the application phase. Um, so, there have been some contrasting notions about these phases on the ground level because I was an Outreachy intern and I know I have guided some of my juniors to participate in it. I have a a bit of an idea about it. So, on one hand, some people find it to be incredibly competitive um, to get through the SFP phase. They find that having a limited amount of characters uh, to express who they are and how uh, how they work or their true selves is really, really difficult. The other thing is that the some some people see it as a diversity thing and not as a way to a way to communicate to the Outreachy organizations, uh, so, SFC. And the people, uh, who get selected, some people think that those people just had to kind of tell their sob story to get through, but it does not capture the real picture here. Um, in fact, this round is done to filter out those people who genuinely do need this, um, uh, this program and they can benefit off of it, um, rather than do those who just apply for the novelty of it. So, yeah. The other idea that floats around, uh, is about the contribution phase where uh, people feel a lot of overwhelming experiences, uh, because of the competition and because of the timeline, the constraints, and everything. And it is so overwhelming that at some point they might actually forget to put in work. From my personal experience, it was pretty hard for me because, uh, it was towards the end of my second semester of college and, uh, uh, my domain was mechanical engineering then. And I was studying for my exams. I had my final semester exams at that time. I was also a part of uh JP Morgan's mentorship program. And I was also a part of a small computer club where we were uh building a game from scratch, uh to contributing to that. And then I was also studying for data structures and algorithms because I knew that on campus internship exams were going to happen soon. So, I was pretty busy. And due to that uh I had uh to I had the opportunity to contribute to only one project. So, that was the Fedora badges design project. And this is actually a very risky bet uh considering most people contribute to around three to four projects at the time to increase their chances. And a lot of people face similar problems as I did. They get busy with lives, they might fall sick, and they cannot find time to make more contributions. So, they feel discouraged and uh it's it's around uh 20 to 40% of the people who drop out of the contribution phase halfway through it because of the overwhelm overwhelming feeling, right? Um so, what worked for me to continue was to focus on the quality of my work rather than the quantity of my contributions. So, I spent a lot of time researching about the organization, what is the product that they want, uh looking at the things that already existed, and then providing some valuable contributions. And for introverts like me, to help me build my understanding of the project, what helped me the most was the group chat that we had uh with the co-contributors and the mentors along with the proper guidelines of the project I was contributing to. So, uh towards the end of my contribution phase, there was a release party actually, which was communicated to this channel, the metrics channel. And uh I joined just to learn about Fedora more. Uh I don't remember which release party it was, but yeah. And it really helped me understand uh how the cycle goes. I Now this was my first experience with open source actually. I had no idea I was using open source and I had for the first time realized, okay, so this is what open source is. So my mentors noticed my enthusiasm of learning about Fedora and it earned me some appreciation. So it never hurts to be more interested. >> Okay. So let's talk about the elephant in the room. I think Nikita just mentioned one of the example is like being an introvert. Like I again like with my like 5 years, 6 years of being in an open source and like mentoring, being a mentee, and talking to a lot of people, I try to classify into four perspective of what are the barriers of reaching out. Many of us are hesitant because of fear. Fear of what? Fear of rejection, fear of feeling unworthy, fear of feeling that we are not good enough, or like we are taking someone else's time. Imposter syndrome is something I've battled myself because like even I'm even sometimes when I release Fedora, I often ask myself like am I doing enough? Or or like do I really belong here? But like we should understand that here's like the actual truth is everyone feels that at some point of their time. The key is to keep moving forward, contribute, and learn and grow. Remember, it's not about being perfect. It's about the progress that you're making along the line. My first release was Fedora 39 that I did, and trust me, I was hyperventilating and my manager is sitting here and I was telling him that are you sure that I can do this? And he was like, just do it. Like you you can. So these So I'm telling you like these fears are valid, but let me assure you mentors and mentorship is there to help you out. Communities thrive on engagement, and your voice really matters. Whether it's about asking a small question or it's just telling you like telling you that this policy is wrong. So, whatever it is, like your voice really matters. So, Nikita, what held it you back when you were starting your first contribution open source? >> Okay, so we had this Matrix channel, right? With the co-contributors and the mentors. Um it took me around 3 weeks to drop my first text in because I felt asking questions would make me look stupid. >> Hello. It's not working. Is it working? >> Yeah. >> Hello. Okay. So, 2 minutes break we're going to take and we're going to ask the audience. Whenever you Whenever you were guys starting on open source programs or projects, what were the thing that stopped you? Any volunteers? What were the fears? Yes, David. >> Look, I'm probably a little bit older than you and I still feel stupid asking questions. Like it depends on how many people you know, are in the audience. Like there was there was things that I will say to maybe a cash that I'm not going to say in in a team setting or a you just an example of >> See. So, like let's just like look at here like feeling unworthy. So, a fear of being judged like over my expertise like I what I What if I sound stupid? So, anyone else? >> Yes, Mel. >> Um I remember one of our Fedora contributor members, um Ashlin Knox, teaching me how to do like actual code work that wasn't just design. And I remember having to turn my camera off because I was so embarrassed and my face was like completely red. And she was helping me like do something, but it was just it was very overwhelming. >> The fear of overwhelming. Yes, these are the problems that I was talking about. Uh we talked about the problem. Now we'll talk about the solution. So, this this this was the first text that I did to my Debian mentor and I was asking stupid questions and he was replying perfect questions out of it. So, we need to break through those barriers and the only way to get is to through them. We need to start small. Ask one question. Just go into those one discussion. Go into that one conference, sit idle, feel stupid. I'm going to tell you you're going to When you're going to come out of that room, you're going to be something better. Remember, communities thrive when new voices are welcome. Like like people cannot just stay with like 10 people like 10 old people at the same time. Only the new people are coming, that's what matters. And finally, focus. Focus on growth over perfection. Don't chase Don't chase that you need to be the best out of the out of the room. So, if you're wondering whether to raise your hand or send that patch or like join that conference, just go ahead. Sign it. Do it. Over to you. >> So, from the point of mentors and this is an excerpt from the presentation that we did give at Nome Asia last year. So, a lot of it has been contributions of Justin. So, from the point of mentors, the most challenging thing about the contribution phase would be battling the overwhelming number of new people in the community, right? And it all boils down to two factors, basically. Giving the most talented applicants sufficient opportunities to showcase themselves and their skills. And the other one being providing opportunities for less experienced contributors to start building their portfolio and skills in the open source world, even if the mentor knows that they're not going to continue with them. So, some people are more ready than others. Some people need a gentle guidance to reach to their peak, and some people just show up ready to rock. So, let's continue to unpack this case study from the point of view of mentors and what can be done better. Last year I had the opportunity to be involved as a helping mentor for the Fedora Outreachy Summer Internships, and I found a lot of differences from what my internship looked like. So, there were some guidelines which fell amiss to me. Um Outreachy documents that one should not contribute uh to more than three issues at a time. And after you're completed with one set of these three issues, then only you can move on to the next ones. So, Fedora did not have those guidelines. Apparently, people were contributing to more than three issues at a time uh that moment. And uh having additional guidelines in general for people beyond what Outreachy provides helps them to prevent the noise contributions. Uh So, if you've seen the last talk in this room, uh a lot of what noise contribution means is uh contributions which might be well, AI-generated or maybe they're just uh focusing on the quantity of contributions rather than the quality. So, it creates a lot of noise uh to filter out for the mentors of what is valuable. And the other one is that there was a bit of lack of consistency across projects. So, while it's completely normal for different orgs to have different set of rules, it's difficult for the new contributor to actually jump uh between the rules if the rules keep changing within the same organization. So, last time uh Fedora had three projects, and all of them had different guidelines. So, let's say I'm a contributor and I choose to contribute to let's say GNOME and Fedora. It's normal if GNOME has different rules and Fedora has different rules for for but if I need to keep switching uh the roles between the projects of Fedora, it's it's really going to overwhelm me because then I might not be able to focus much. So, yeah, it it just contributes to the difficulty, I guess. And during the application phase, the most important things to keep in mind as a mentor um would be to check for their independence in work, whether they're asking the right questions, there is good communication, they're collaborative, and what is their personality in general. Um so, last year Fedora has a had a sequential tasks as an additional prerequisite to the application. So, we identified a baseline and provided room to build on top of it. So, the baseline as a minimum threshold to survive the wave was to do like a bottom-up approach and basically build on it. And during the onboarding process, what could be important for the mentors to keep in mind is having introduction calls, getting to teach the mentees about the tooling process, the workflows, having stand-ups, having reporting kind of schedule and outreach, and if the more guidance is needed, some shadow sessions can happen where the mentor is there guiding them. And through the internship, there should be ongoing communication, of course, clear milestones to um motivate the mentees to focus on the goals and to reach them. And beginning from many projects and then transitioning them into full-time projects. Again, the bottom-up approach. And when it's time to see them off, it's important to create long-lasting impact, discussing future goals and opportunities, um thinking about how the intern will remain connected to the community. So, this is not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. Some may not continue, and it's completely okay. Others might reduce. And some might continue. So, it's important to help them connect their enhanced skills to a new and professional domain of opportunities, and don't over focus on keeping them in their project. So. >> So, we heard the mentor perspective and the mentee perspective and how it was important to have it in an open source world. As we are short on time, but we also had an activity, but we'll do that next time. But we are open to questions now if you have some questions around mentorship, questions about feeling afraid, how people work on it, reach out to us. That's it. Thank you. >> [applause] >> YEAH. >> SO, ANY QUESTIONS? >> OF COURSE. >> HOW DO YOU GUYS track the like the goals that they have? Like is this like something like it's an issue tracker or like like when you set out like the goals that they have to do as a part of the program, like how is that actually like like giving them like as actionable steps, I guess, as they're going along in the in the program? >> Okay. So, during my internship, personally, I had set up weekly milestones. So, we had sync-ups every week, and then we would discuss what we want to achieve this week. And in the next meeting, we would again set up new milestones. So, every week we keep on updating that. And we had I think a document a hack MD for that. >> Uh similarly, when I was doing GSoC, I had this like weekly things to do. It was not a strict schedule, but like basically talking to like my mentor and saying, "Okay, I would like do this exchange, but I'm not sure if I I this in deadline, but I'm actually documenting everything iteratively over the my application period and everything and then going through that. So, like that's what helped me. >> Yeah, I wanted to comment on the questions well and and what you said. So, um as a mentor and also as a past mentee uh a lot of years ago, um I I I believe that it's it's okay to have goals, but as a mentee the most important thing is to have a path forward uh when you're doing the the internship. I believe the internship uh should not be uh succeed or or or or we should not determine determine succeed or failure based on goals, but more on progression. The um personal experience I did GSoC two times. Uh the first time um I barely did the goals. Second time uh although I um I I did much more than I was expected to do because I was much more experienced. Um I think if I will have failed because the first time, I will probably not done the second one and probably my situation would be very different right now. Um so, I think it's important to measure the progress of the mentee and and look at try to understand that they are moving forward and they are doing the effort more than it's actually reaching the goal or not. And it's always as as you mentioned very good to update the milestones uh on the go because if you set them on a stone, you're going to probably uh fail on the uh internship. >> Absolutely. >> So, uh great presentation. Thank you. I could talk with you about imposter syndrome all day, I think. Um [laughter] I wonder if I might hijack slightly and ask a question to the room. I know we're short on time. Just by a show of hands, how many people would put down their current position in their career or their involvement down to one or two key people? I know I can. So, yeah. How many How many people would say that their current place in life, their career, their involvement in projects is down to one or two key people or interactions that they had? That's absolutely true for me. You see, that's the entire room for the recording. That is the entire room pretty much has their hands up. This stuff really matters. And thank you. >> [snorts] >> So, we are out of time. >> Okay. Thank you, guys. Thank you, folks. >> [applause]