Mirror, mirror, on the wall: testing Conway’s Law in open source communities
Channel: LinuxConfAu 2018 - Sydney, Australia
Date: 26/01/2018

Lindsay Holmwood

http://lca2018.linux.org.au/schedule/presentation/71/

Mirror, mirror, on the wall: testing Conway’s Law in open source communities.

You’re probably familiar with Conway’s Law, that “organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations." But did you know that there’s a tradition in academia spanning as far back as the 1960’s that has studied it in action?  

Our understanding began in the traditions of organisational design, product design, and organisations-as-complex-systems. Conway’s Law is a separate tradition in technology, embracing our idioms and ways of storytelling.  

But all three traditions point back to the same underlying concepts. 

Conway’s Law has been studied across auto, aviation, software, banking, and healthcare. Each study has revealed how humans organise to build systems, and how those systems influence how we organise ourselves.

The results are not what you’d expect.

The internet has completely changed how we communicate – the cost of communication is lower than ever. Open Source breaks new ground about how we organise ourselves when working together.   How Conway’s Law applies to open source development will surprise you. 
  
People who attend this talk will learn:
  
* A brief history of Conway’s Law in management literature and academia.
* How Conway’s Law applies differently to your open source community and your workplace.
* How to apply the evidence to help you grow and sustain your community in a fast evolving ecosystem.

This talk was given at Linux.conf.au 2018 (LCA2018) which was held on 22-26 January 2018 in Sydney Australia.

linux.conf.au is a conference about the Linux operating system, and all aspects of the thriving ecosystem of Free and Open Source Software that has grown up around it. Run since 1999, in a different Australian or New Zealand city each year, by a team of local volunteers, LCA invites more than 500 people to learn from the people who shape the future of Open Source. For more information on the conference see https://linux.conf.au/

#linux.conf.au #linux #foss #opensource