So far in 2022, 216 professionals from 96 companies have attended meetings of TM Forum's Open API Project, helping to develop the API specifications and conformance tools. These are impressive numbers, but perhaps not as impressive as they could be, given that more than 10,500 professionals from 1,100 companies have downloaded Open APIs in the same period. And when we count API 'Producers' as only those individuals who have attended 5 or more project meetings this year, our ratio of Producers to Consumers falls to less than 0.5%.
TM Forum's Collaboration Subcommittee is seeking a deeper understanding of what motivates our industry professionals to contribute, and looking for ideas on how we can increase participation in the Open API (and other) development work.
As a reference point, here's a list of reasons why developers contribute to opensource programs*:
- A chance to work with others outside of their company, geography or region.
- Side Projects - work on more interesting projects for some part of the working week.
- Fix an issue or bug that has been really bothering them.
- Reputation or recognition – a chance to have a reputation in external organizations or be seen as at local, regional or global expert on a topic.
- Gaining (or enhancing) skills and expertise – an opportunity to broaden a resume/CV with externally recognized references or achievements.
- Altruism - making the world a better place by contributing something of use to others.
* List kindly provided by Craig Farrell of IBM
If you are already an Open API Producer, what motivates you?
If you are one of our Consumers, what would make it attractive and feasible for you to get more involved with the development work?
- Does the time commitment appear too great? Would you participate if you could pick up discrete tasks rather than open-ended commitments?
- Would more public recognition amongst your peers be a motivation for you?
- Do you find TM Forum's project structures hard to understand and join in with? Perhaps some on-boarding sessions would help?
- Perhaps you weren't aware that participation is open to anyone from a TM Forum member organization?
Please let us have your ideas.
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Andy Tiller
TM Forum
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