How Microsoft uses walkthroughs to guide open source development

Microsoft’s shift to open development models is an interesting case study in how to manage open source development at scale. With millions of users and thousands of potential contributors, the company’s project maintainers have problems that most open source projects haven’t yet had to face.

At Microsoft’s level of scale, a project maintainer is more akin to a product manager or project manager than a development lead. They’re working with both internal and external contributors, while trying to direct effort into delivering on items in the project backlog as well as fixing bugs and issues. Then there’s the task of managing feature requests, in many cases working with volunteers new to the project and to the constraints of delivering enterprise applications.

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