Best Practices in Open Source: Alcatel-Lucent’s FOSS Intranet

Since 2002, Alcatel-Lucent has operated an intranet to educate employees about FOSS and to foster collaboration and decision-making.  This “best practice” is well worth emulating.  To learn more, I interviewed Alcatel-Lucent’s Michel Ruffin, PhD, who works as Software Coordination Manager in the Bell Labs Corporate CTO Department.

Jim Berets:  Where did the idea for Alcatel-Lucent’s FOSS intranet come from?

Michel Ruffin:  The need for scalability.  As a key contributor to Alcatel-Lucent’s FOSS efforts, I received many, many questions via email about FOSS.  With 80,000 employees (many in R&D), this was not sustainable.  Since the same questions get asked repeatedly, I preferred to write documents and point people to them.

Having the information in one place is a reference for the whole company; everyone knows where to find it.  While some people still prefer email, the information is already available, so I can just refer them to the prepared document.

Jim:  What are the goals for the FOSS intranet?

Michel:  In a big company, you are forced to decentralize information and decisions; enable all businesses within the company to contribute.  You want knowledge in one part of the company to be used by other people in the company.  Further, there’s a certain amount of double-checking that can go on because many people look at the shared information.  In some respects, our intranet works like an open source project:  many people collaborate on it and this improves the quality of our site and database.  We have expanded from just a few people contributing to more than 170.

Jim:  What content do you have on the site?

Michel:  Quite a lot.  Let me summarize the categories for you.

FOSS tutorials like:

• Basic information about open source
• Summaries of major FOSS technologies like Linux, databases, Java, web technologies
• Comparison of Linux distributions
• Information on understanding and evaluating FOSS risks

Company-specific information like:

• FOSS policy
• FOSS use procedures
• Our implementation book on how to implement the policy
• How to contribute
• Summary of common FOSS licenses in plain language
• Information on our tools for FOSS governance
• List of people trained in company – by organization – on FOSS governance

And finally, our shared FOSS database consisting of:

• Requests by our developers to use FOSS projects, for incorporation in our products or for other use
• The status of these requests and whether they were approved or denied
• Any conditions attached to use by our approval team
• Dependencies on other FOSS projects
• And so on

Jim:  Who are the principal users of the FOSS intranet?

Michel:  It’s open to the whole company and is used by R&D, procurement, legal, etc. – many parts of the company.  We have thousands of users.  From an authorship perspective, the content has been contributed by about 170 of us including the FOSS executive committee, technical contributors, procurement, and legal teams.

Jim:  What tangible results have you seen from making this resource available?

Michel:  A lot less email!  But more importantly, there is considerably more sharing of information across the enterprise as to what FOSS is used and by who.

Jim:  What other advice do you have for companies interested in creating a FOSS intranet?

Michel:  All companies trying to manage FOSS should have some sort of a database.  It’s needed by everybody.  This should collect the information regarding whether or not to use each particular FOSS project, and how it is being used, the technical assessment, legal review, etc.

In big companies, it is not possible to have a single person controlling the process, so it needs to be distributed.  To get consistent information to all of these people, you need a mechanism to do it.  Information has to be found in one place even though the people using it may be distributed.

Finally, you need to be able to measure the implementation of your FOSS governance process across business units and the countries / cultures in which they operate.  Don’t rely only on declarations of FOSS usage; be more thorough.  Create a scorecard to measure your practices.  Leverage your quality management team within the company to build FOSS governance and measurement into the process.

Jim:  Thank you Michel!

More information on Alcatel-Lucent’s approach to FOSS governance can be found in Michel and Philippe Richard’s presentation from the 2011 Open World Forum “Implementing an Efficient and Safe FOSS Strategy in a Global Company.”