[OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

[Jody Garnett]

Bruce.Bannerman at dpi.vic.gov.au wrote:
> However this is probably unrealistic  as to do this the developer will 
> have to have existing credibility within the community and there may 
> be good reasons why the community does not want to have 'product X' 
> included.
So start slow with some metrics reflecting getting involved in the 
community and making contacts.
> Does anyone have any examples that they use or thoughts on the above?
> I do understand that metrics can be abused, may be meaningless and may 
> not be the best way to handle this, however we have to start somewhere.
What a hard question ...

Try for a couple of the metrics you use when evaluating open source 
projects:
- open development; what is their level of involvement on a scale of  
learning, helping, submitting patches, commit access, responsibility, 
responsibility
- documentation and help (assume number of pages written/edited; or 
number of questions answered on the user list)
- quality assurance: number of test cases produced
- number of patches submitted, or number of bugs depending on level of 
involvement... consider putting this on a scale so long standing bugs 
are worth more :-)
- frequency of release (number of releases the employee assisted with 
via either tagging and packaging, testing; announcing etc...)
- etc...

I recommend approaching the specific communities you wish to be involved 
in and asking where help is needed.
> We have a window of opportunity to get some more developers working on 
> OS projects as the Performance Planning cycle re-starts shortly and 
> I'd like to help our developers get some constructive ideas to take 
> into their sessions.
Cheers,
Jody