Program Development Process in Open Source

Contributing to open source is incredibly rewarding, as it offers real-time experiences, exposes you to new skills, and helps in your career growth. Being given the responsibility to transform an existing idea into an official program is an entirely new level of experience I’m excited to undertake during my internship with Fedora. Speaking of my internship, I am delighted to say I am making good progress.

As you already know from my past series, most of my work revolves around documentation. And for my long-term project, I am working on launching a program that is both user-facing and vendor-facing. A large percent of this involves documenting, and the other percent involves some marketing activities. The program is to help Fedora users easily find hardware compatible with Fedora Linux and to support hardware vendors with marketing, technical assistance, and project management for their hardware. This blog post series highlights my long-term project and how I am collaborating with my mentors in the program’s development process. So, I am going to share with you insights into the program’s development processes.

What is this program?

This is a promotional program to support hardware vendors who have confirmed their support of Fedora Linux on their hardware. It is also a program to help Fedora users identify hardware or computers that come with Fedora preinstalled or can run Fedora Linux. If you have ever tried to purchase a computer that you intend to run any Linux systems on and were uncertain about which hardware or computer to purchase, this program is designed to solve that for you. The program’s approved devices page is a great resource for finding hardware that supports Fedora Linux.

Step-by-step program development

Before getting into the development process, I want to acknowledge that the marketing team has previously supported hardware vendors in various ways. The idea to launch this program formally came from my mentors, Joseph and Justin. So, my main responsibility is to collaborate with my mentors to provide more visibility and recognition to hardware vendors who ship or support Fedora Linux on their hardware. The program is not a certification or endorsement program; rather, it is a promotional program. As with any typical program management process, there are processes to follow to launch a program, and this one is no different.

Program Development Process: Concept Generation

Concept development is an important first step in bringing a program’s idea to life. It involves converting an idea into a well-defined blueprint. For this project, my first task was to develop a concept for the program. It is essentially defining the program’s idea in a document in a way that brings clarity, and structure to the new program. I described the program and its intended purpose, explored the pros and cons, and highlighted the benefits of the program, among other things.

Next step: Survey and feedback from vendors on the program

Once the program’s concept was generated, we needed to gather feedback from hardware vendors on the program before launching it. We wanted to know their thoughts about every aspect of the program’s concept in order to help us determine if the vendors are clear on the program's concept or unclear about any part of it. I drafted a survey that included questions covering all aspects of the program. We believe the feedback gathered from the survey will help us shape the program in the best way possible.

Legal

The legal aspect of the program involves some legal checks on the intended name of the program. Since the name is what we will refer to as the program, we want to make sure there are no legal implications involved in the use of the name publicly.

Brand Kit and Guidelines

Another important part of the program is the development of a brand kit and guidelines. The brand kit includes logos, marketing messages, and other visual elements. The guidelines provide instructions on how to use these elements correctly to maintain brand consistency.

Final Word

In this series, I’ve walked you through a program development process peculiar to my work as an intern with Fedora. From concept generation to gathering feedback, legal checks, and creating a brand kit, each step has been a collaborative effort between my mentors and me. And I have acquired lots of new knowledge working on this program.

If you are new to Fedora Linux or the Fedora community, I encourage you to explore the community and operating system and see how you can get involved. Whether you are a developer, designer, or just an enthusiast, there is a place for you in Fedora. Join us now.