But how to specifically collect and analyze these aspects is a big problem. To know if a project is healthy, we need to calculate and analyze metrics data over time. In addition, the daily operation of the open source community generates a large amount of data, and the use of Dashboard to collect and analyze a large amount of data in the community can help the entire project to make decisions and develop directions. This article will detail how metrics and dashboards are being leveraged by the open source community.
"The goal here is not to construct an enormous vacuum cleaner to suck every tiny detail of your community into a graph. The goal is instead to identify what we don't know about our community and to use measurements as a means to understand those things better."
The Art of Community - Jono Bacon
Open source software is rooted in the community. Through the information brought by different indicators, community participants (Stakeholders) can learn more about the community and make informed decisions. For example, developers can choose the most suitable projects to join, maintainers can determine which governance measures are effective, end users can choose projects that are healthier, live longer, and prosperous, and investors can choose projects investment [1]. In addition, the Open Source Program Office (OSPO), an in-house office designed to manage the open source ecosystem on which companies depend [5], is able to assess the health and sustainability of projects by analyzing different metrics. Since about 90% of the components of modern applications are open source [6], OSPO has become very popular. Therefore, it is important for OSPO to measure the risks of using, contributing and releasing open source software [5].
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Setting goals : Measurement without goals is meaningless; understand what specific goals the community wants to achieve [3]. -
Find reliable sources of statistics : Once you have identified your goals, the next step is to identify channels or methods that will help you achieve your goals. It is important to find a way to do statistics on your most important goals [4]. Some statistics are obvious, for example on GitHub, you can collect the number of stars, forks, and contributors of the codebase, and you can also access the data through mailing list subscribers and the project website. However, some statistics are not so obvious and may require specialized tools to help mine these data. -
Interpret statistics : Interpret and statistic data in terms of people, products, processes, and partners [4]. That is, looking at the data most relevant to the people in the community, such as the efficiency of contributors, which channels have the most influence, etc. Then, based on the speed and maturity of the project, such as the number of PRs and the number of Issues, think about what a mature review process should look like? How long does it take to resolve an Issue? Finally, look at the entire open source ecosystem from the perspective of partners, such as project dependencies and some data that depend on your project. -
使用仪表盘来评估开源指标 ：目前有许多工具能够创建仪表盘，可用于分析和衡量开源社区的健康状况，其中包 括 LFX Insights, Bitergia, and GrimoireLab。 -
修改完善 ：评估指标后，开源项目则需要按照评估结果做出相应的改善。
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Diversity and Inclusion工作组 专注于活动的多元化和包容性、社区治理的多元化和包容性以及社区领导方向的健康程度。 -
Evolution 工作组创建了用于分析软件开发中涉及的活动的类型和频率、提高项目质量的过程以及社区发展的指标。 -
Value 工作组创建度量标准，用于确定项目在软件项目之外改善人们生活的程度、项目对用户或献者的价值程度以及项目从组织角度来看具有货币价值的程度看法。 -
Risk 工作组创建指标以了解特定软件包的质量、潜在的知识产权问题，并了解给定软件包在许可证、依赖项等方面的透明度。
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维护者和项目负责人 可以获得项目的多维度报告，避免维护者倦怠，确保项目的健康、安全和可持续性。 -
项目推广者和社区布道者 可以使用这些指标来吸引新成员和参与社区，并确定提高知名度的机会。 -
成员和企业赞助商 可以知道要参与哪些社区和软件，在社区内交流并评估其员工的开源贡献。 -
开源开发人员 可以知道将他们的工作重点放在哪里，展示他们的领导力和专业知识，管理社区动态及其影响力。
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