The world of IT - it's all about the community

Meet Magento is a worldwide series of conferences about Magento e-commerce platform. According to Meet Magento Association, which is uniting the meetup organizers, at this moment there are 30 Meet Magento events worldwide that are attended by around 21 000 people and where 800 speakers talk about the world the world of e-commerce. All of this is driven by the community gathered around Magento.

This year it was the 5th time when Meet Magento was organized in Poland, the second time in Poznań. It was a great opportunity to meet a lot of people from around the world - from merchants, through different e-commerce service providers and Magento developers to Magento Inc. employees. Whether you are interested in e-commerce or it's a part of your professional life as a service provider or a merchant, those gatherings are a great opportunity for you to meet other people that share your enthusiasm. I recommend looking for a nearest Meet Magento location and attending the conference.

On every Meet Magento conference a lot of attention is paid to the community aspect of Magento - this year was no different. However, connecting people is also characteristic of any Open Source technology and overall web development. This can be treated by companies as one of the key factors when it comes to deciding what techs should they use and by developers when they are searching for a new technology to learn. Using open source also has a great value when it comes to delivering good-quality products to end users.

Open Source is for you

You might have noticed that I mentioned Open Source. Since it enables a development of communities, I want to introduce you to the basics of this vast topic. A thorough description of an Open Source can fill a whole book, but a general understanding of the term will help to assess the impact of the communities on the technology development.

Over the recent years, we have observed the rapid growth of the technologies that can be described as an Open Source. That term essentially means that:

• it's free to use - there are various licenses that regulate the usage of the technologies, but in Open Source none of them imposes any fees or purchasing necessary licenses;
• it has a public access - anyone can use it and gain access to the whole code and features of the technology, thanks to what it's possible to understand how it works;
• you can use and modify it any way you want to - there might be some slight limitations defined in the licenses, but the general idea is that you can use chosen technology for any purpose on the condition that you won't sell it (but you can sell the final product of development with its usage);
• anyone can contribute - although many Open Source technologies have “product owners” who organize their process of creation and development, those technologies are based on open repositories (eg. GitHub), thanks to what any developer can contribute their code either by solving an issue or adding new functionalities/enabling new possibilities.

One example of an Open Source technology is Magento Community Edition. Magento Inc. acts as its product owner, but thousands of developers and users worldwide are co-creators of this project. The easy access has allowed for a widespread of its usage, which has also caused the growth of the active community gathered around it. It is reassuring that there is always someone who works on solving current issues, someone who can help with an encountered problem and someone who discovers new applications of the technology. All of this keeps the community running like a well-oiled machine.

Why active communities are important?

Now you might be asking yourself whether strong community is really that important.

Here are the greatest benefits that come with it:

• lower entry level;
• faster solving of encountered issues;
• better safety (the more people are using the technology, the easier it gets to identify safety issues and address them in a timely manner);
• shared knowledge;
• attracting new developers;
• sparking ideas for new applications,
• facilitating finding the right developer for your projects.

Identifying the state of the community

Technologies flourish with the rise of communities. The more people are involved, the better is the understanding of the technology, the more projects are created, and the more unobvious usages are discovered. And, although describing a community as strong may be subjective, there are some things you might check to assess its reach and power.

Market lifetime

Market lifetime isn't always the most important factor because there are some deviations from this rule, but obviously the longer a technology is on the market, the bigger the chances that it’s stable and the community around it has grown.

Market share

Widely used technologies frequently have larger communities around them. It doesn’t always mean that technology with the greater market share is better, but it should be considered as decisive factor.

There are different ways to verify the market share. Firstly you may search for reports conducted by research companies, but those are not always easily accessible. As an alternative, you can try checking Wappalyzer, where you can find statistics on how many websites use a particular technology.

Project's life on GitHub

GitHub is the most popular place of storing the code repositories, which are also used to share projects and technologies with the public. One of such projects is for instance Magento2 (which is a community driven, open source technology), which repository you can find HERE. Just by looking into such project you can get an idea of how many people are involved in the development of technology, how many commits are being made, how many issues are being reported and resolved or what is the pace of resolving the issues. Watch, star and fork features that available on GitHub are also indicators of popularity.

Community driven Q&A forums

It is also worth checking if there are dedicated Q&A forums such as Magento StackExchange. You can at least find out whether there are many contributors on StackExchange forums in discussions about a particular technology.

Development companies are willing to share their knowledge

Again, when it comes to exchanging knowledge this is one of the most important factors. Sharing knowledge and experiences is essential for building a strong community, as well as for an evolution of Open Source technologies. Software houses are usually crucibles where many specialists from different fields work on projects together, what leads to sharing various experiences and knowledge between many people. When those companies only keep their knowledge to themselves, then there is no contribution. But if they decide to share, it works like an ignition for the community to develop. We also have our way to contribute in this field by running workshops for technology enthusiasts - check it out HERE.

Technology evangelists

On the other hand, there are people who would rather work on their own or just want to share their knowledge under their own, not company's, name. Frequently such people become evangelists of the technology like Vinai Kopp, who is a long time contributor to Magento community.

Conferences and local events

Conferences and local events are important as platforms of communication for developers, specialists and business owners that use the technology in their companies or for their products. You can attend conferences as big as Meet Magento or smaller meet-ups for developers, which are also popular and shouldn't be overlooked.

Summary

As you can see Meet Magento was only a spark that led me to a deeper analysis of the community aspect around technology. This conference works as an excellent example of what an active community can give you or your company. Whether you are a business owner, developer or a specialist in such fields as product management, you should always be aware of those communities. Being a part of a strong, flourishing community may have an enormous impact on your personal career or the product you are building. I hope this brief overview will help you to assess the power of the communities in the technological world.