How did a small, completely self-funded team build a web framework that became more popular than comparable tools with million-dollar budgets? By welcoming the outsiders. Mike will recount how Sails.js grew from an internal tool to one of the most popular frameworks for Node.js, without forgetting its roots. In this talk, Mike will reflect on the experiences he and his team have had building and managing an open-source Node.js framework, Sails.js. He'll discuss the success they've had attracting interlingual developers to Sails, and share some lessons and difficulties they've encountered migrating a new generation of developers from PHP, Java, .NET and Rails to Node.js. There will be discussion of examples from both sides of the spectrum addressing community-related and technical issues with a highlight about overcoming the "maintaining interest" challenge.

1. from rags to… open-source?
SXSW 2015 #ragstoopensource
@sailsjs

3. Mike McNeil
@mikermcneil
github.com/mikermcneil

4. bdfl of
the leading open-source
MVC framework for Node.js

5. the leading open-source
MVC framework for Node.js

6. at least downloads since 2013400,000
GitHub stars9,800
over downloads / day1,500

7. in funding$0

8. 3 Stages of Open-Source

9. 1. No one knows about your $!#%
2. No one knows how to use your $!#%
3. No one pays you for your $!#%

11. est. feb 2012

13. (us)
(customer)
(Javascript app)

14. love at first sight
circa 2011
Node.js...

15. so…

17. You don't want to be writing all
these system calls.
You need something that gives
you… an ORM abstraction, or
something.

18. could we use
…for everything?
I wondered…

21. Sails is an MVC framework.

22. Sails is an MVC framework.

23. Sails is an MVC framework.

24. Sails is an MVC framework.

25. Sails is an MVC framework.

26. Sails is an MVC framework.

27. Sails is an MVC framework.

28. Sails is an MVC framework.

29. first version (late 2011)

30. December 2012

32. >=20 other community adapters custom app-specific adapters

33. January 2013
first halfway-decent docs
http://web.archive.org/web/20130514080123/http://balderdashy.github.io/sails/

34. posted screencast in early 2013

35. …woke up to 1000 views

37. reddit — Feb 2013
hacker news — Mar 2013
and again two months later

39. managed to get sailsjs.org online
mid-spring 2013

41. No one knows about your $!#%

42. #sails on freenode (IRC)
issues
groups

43. support !== marketing
but remember

44. support !== marketing
( )
but remember

45. measure things

46. Github stars
NPM downloads / day
Google group membership
IRC channel activity
Number of tagged StackOverflow questions
(and your answer ratio)

49. ????

50. ???????????

51. v0.9 introduced
a new streamlined asset pipeline

52. asset pipeline????
“what about gulp?!”
“so thirsty…”
asset pipeline????????!!!!
asset pipeline????????!!!!
asset pipeline????????!!!!
asset pipeline????????!!!!
asset pipeline????????!!!!

53. so v0.10 introduced generators.

54. feature requests
are the hydra

55. they will never stop.

56. they will never stop.
ever.

57. No one knows how to use your $!#%

58. inline jsdoc comments
are not enough
write docs in markdown
compile to HTML

59. remain humble
you’re never big
enough to be a dick

60. make something people want

61. better yet make something
YOU want

62. don’t repeat yourself
DRY

63. don’t repeat ourselves
DRO
the goal of open source

64. if you don’t actually need a thing
because it will suck
don’t build it

65. only write code you actually need
if someone else actually needs something,
they’ll write a pull request
only merge new code if someone actually needs
you to merge it (i.e. there’s no other way, via a
plugin or something)

68. we were
monetized
via
professional
services

70.
C
O
NFI
DEN
TIA
L
i
nfo
rma
tion
in
tended
only
for
t
he
addressee(s).
If
you
are
not
the
intended
recipient,
empl
oyee
or
agent
responsible
for
delivery
to
the
intended
recipient(s),
please
be
aware
that
any
review,
dissemination,
use,distribut
ion
or
copying
of
this
message
and
its
contents
is
strictly
prohibited.
If
you
receive
this
email
in
error,
ple
ase
notify
the
sender
and
destroy
any
paper
or
electronic
copies
immediately.

77. We're just giving you
functions that return
functions that you do
things with.
Doug Wilson
Lead Maintainer, Express

78. A standardized interface for JavaScript functions.
node-machine.org/spec

79. far more front-end developers
∃
than back-end developers

80. far more front-end developers
∃
than back-end developers
eventually
everyday backend development
will be commoditized

82. Y Combinator

83. driving = bad idea

87. “Since we can execute Bash and PowerShell scripts on the
machine that is supposed to run the sails app, we can pretty
much do whatever we want…”
contributes to Sails.js

88. “…Treeline is working with the
Sails.js community to bring in
JavaScript developers who
could use the editor to be more
productive.”

90. No one pays you for your $!#%

91. DONT
TRY TO SELL FREE
SOFTWARE

92. creepy

93. You can’t
monetize open-source.

94. build a new product
on top of open-source tools

95. not creepy

96. ALL SOFTWARE
WILL BE OPEN-SOURCE
EVENTUALLY

97. give more than
you take

98. Questions?
@mikermcneil

99. @mikermcneil
from rags to… open-source?
@ncrumrine