On Running Open Source Projects..

2018 was a year full of good news for the FE Development Lab. The open source projects released by the lab received positive responses, leading to several significant achievements. In the hope that more great open source projects emerge from South Korea, which still plays a minor role in the open source ecosystem, I am writing this post to share the insights we've gained from running open source projects over the past few years.

This article was written using TOAST UI Editor, the charts were created with TOAST UI Chart, and some images were edited using TOAST UI ImageEditor.

Small Beginnings

The first officially released open source project from the FE Development Lab was the TOAST UI Editor. It belatedly gained significant attention, and we shared that experience in a post titled "How a 3-Year-Old Open Source Project Gained 3,000 GitHub Stars in a Week". However, before that, the lab's first project to receive a small but meaningful response was tui.jsdoc-template, released as a template for JSDoc. JSDoc is a tool similar to JavaDoc that automatically generates development documentation if you provide additional information in a predefined format using comments when writing code. We had improved the default JSDoc template internally, adding design elements and features, and decided to release it as open source. The design was done by the lab's team leader, and the development by the most junior member. At the time, since it was a project with limited impact and scale, we started with the mindset of "Let's just release it and use it." Soon, the template was being used in the documentation for projects like video.js and Google's Yeoman.

As the usage of the released template increased, external developers started contributing through PRs and issues in the repository. This was an unprecedented experience for us, and such attention was very encouraging. Discussing the work we created with external developers (in English..), reviewing new features (in English..), and developing the project further was inevitably a valuable experience.

Later, through the positive reception of TOAST UI Editor, we learned that open source projects require some promotional effort and that it's well worth it. Based on this experience, we released various additional projects. Although these were components created out of necessity while developing internal company services, they were built with open source release in mind from the beginning.

The biggest obstacle to making some modules or entire projects open source is often not the concern about the cost of opening up a company's technological assets, but the fear of whether the quality is high enough for public release. So, was our lab able to release open source projects because we were incredibly confident in our deliverables? No. Instead, we had a development culture that could guarantee a certain level of quality. More importantly, we trusted our lab's passion for further developing and maintaining that culture. Of course, the resulting products might still have shortcomings. But at least we believe we produced the best possible output we could. And this process was possible because we work for a company that respects development culture and understands its importance.

Leap Forward

After realizing the potential through TOAST UI Editor, the TOAST UI project became very busy. We decided to promote our other existing projects as well. Before the promotion, we revamped the design of the large-scale components classified as applications: Chart, Grid, Calendar, and ImageEditor. Finally, we were able to apply designs with the help of a designer. Previously, a single developer per project handled design, benchmarking, planning, and community response. With the designer's help, the projects were completely transformed. Of course, this was also because our company's designers are exceptionally skilled. There was even one project whose initial design draft was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes – a first-time experience in my career. (Immense gratitude!)

There was a reason for revamping the design before promotion. Most of the projects were already released as open source alongside the editor. Since we were promoting them belatedly, we needed a distinct improvement to justify the promotion, and we chose design. As the overall design turned out well, there were many positive reactions on SNS and blogs about its aesthetics. Along with the design improvements, official logos were created by the branding and design teams, and within the lab, we began developing the TOAST UI brand site.

For the brand site as well, developers led all roles except design. While there were challenges, I believe it was a beneficial time for the developers' growth. The brand site uses GitHub Pages instead of setting up a separate front-end server. The data is also processed from the README files of the GitHub repositories, so we don't operate a separate backend server. Apart from the drawback of the server being slow during certain times, GitHub Pages is satisfactory in all aspects, and I think it can sufficiently replace a front-end server for a brand site of this scale.

Open source projects struggle to generate direct value. Therefore, the more resources invested, the greater the burden can become. The work we carried out in 2018 was possible because the company believed in the value of open source. Although I didn't hear it directly, there was reportedly support from executives saying, "Don't worry, just focus on making it good so it can be widely used everywhere." What more needs to be said? Personally, I was deeply moved. (I get easily moved now that I'm 40.)

2018 Reactions

After promoting the Editor, we repeated the design revamp and promotion process for Chart, Calendar, ImageEditor, and Grid, in that order. While the value of open source cannot solely be judged by GitHub stars, we believe we achieved reasonably good results. Although not fully verified, it seems we have obtained the best results among Korean companies so far. As of January 7, 2019, the star counts for each project are as follows:

The stars were gained in an order that is understandable considering the usage scope of the components. As the need arose to measure project usage, we started GA tracking in April. The collected information is the domain of the service using TOAST UI, allowing us to measure the usage of each project. Since starting GA tracking in April, the number of service domains using TOAST UI is as follows. The chart counts one per IP or domain.

In November alone, a total of 3,189 IPs used TOAST UI. Although this figure includes hits for testing purposes, we consider it a meaningful usage volume. The PV for services incorporating TOAST UI has already exceeded the limits of the GA free plan, prompting recommendations for paid subscription. (The free plan limit is 10 million hits per month)

Success on GitHub quickly translated into reactions on social media. On Twitter, many people from various countries shared statuses directly whenever a project was released (#toastui, #tui, #nhnent) and responded with retweets and likes to statuses from the Toast UI official Twitter account. You can see the details in the Retweets and Likes tabs of the Toast UI official Twitter account. We plan to continuously collect reactions and respond warmly. (Follows are love.~)

Weekly email magazines related to front-end development also featured content about TOAST UI. Since these magazines are subscribed to by many front-end or web developers, each mention is an honor and greatly appreciated. WebToolsWeekly, which I have been subscribing to for quite some time, frequently made light mentions of TOAST UI.

Frontend Focus, formerly HTML5 Weekly, also featured us occasionally, and the news of the chart release made the headline.

In the first issue of January 2019, they selected TOAST UI Chart as one of the best codes of 2018. (Cheers, Guys!)

Javascript Weekly, which I've personally subscribed to since its early days and received much help and inspiration from, showed considerable interest. It featured the release news of three projects in the headlines and regularly published content about TOAST UI.

Recently, it selected TOAST UI Calendar as one of the best codes of 2018. (Thanks, Guys!)

Furthermore, various blogs published content about TOAST UI, mostly giving positive reviews. Here are a few examples. Tutorialzine introduced TOAST UI Calendar as one of the 15 Interesting JavaScript and CSS Libraries for May 2018.

The blog codeburst, which provides diverse information on web development, published an article recommending TOAST UI Editor.

Silo Creativo, which introduces creative tools, and CodeWall, a blog offering general web development information, published articles introducing Toast UI Chart. CodeWall also selected TOAST UI Chart as the best Bar Chart of 2018.

Content related to TOAST UI could also be found on other sites and blogs.

Through the lab's knowledge-sharing activity called Weekly Pick, we translate one FE-related article or publish an original article each week. English translations of the original articles are shared via the Medium TOAST UI blog. This activity is also shared on Twitter, garnering responses from overseas developers and even being featured in the weekly magazine React status.

There might be even more attention out there on the web. We are grateful for all interest, whether big or small, positive or critical, and we are listening attentively. We look forward to more activities, attention, and feedback in 2019.

Achievements

The benefits a company can expect from running open source projects include enhancing external technological recognition and consequently expanding the talent pool. In the second half of 2018, we were able to confirm these tangible results. Resumes received through rolling admissions increasingly mentioned TOAST UI, and some applicants even expressed a desire to work specifically on developing TOAST UI. In the 2018 experienced hire recruitment drive, we assigned a task to solve a TOAST UI issue, which helped us select excellent talent. This interest was also evident on the anonymous community platform, Blind.

This post, seemingly from a front-end developer considering a job change, received many comments.

Among them, comments like the ones below were very encouraging. All comments from NHN Entertainment were written by employees outside the lab. (It's not staged~, and thanks to our colleagues~)

It feels deeply gratifying to think that we are gaining some recognition.

In the latter half of the year, we heard some welcome news. Froala Editor, known for its paid WYSIWYG editor, replaced its image editor with TOAST UI ImageEditor.

Through their blog, they announced the switch from Adobe's Aviary to TOAST UI ImageEditor, and soon after, version 2.9 with the change was released. Besides this, although we didn't win, TOAST UI Editor was nominated at the Git Nation OS Awards. We also receive steady business partnership requests from various companies, but we consistently decline them due to company policy.

Future Activities

I, the author of this post, am proudly responsible for leading the TOAST UI projects. On the canvas created by the lab's team leader, the developers and I complete the picture. The picture we aim to complete in 2019 includes the following:

Release a JavaScript development documentation automation tool.
Rewrite the Grid from the ground up, removing most dependencies to improve performance.
Adjust the Chart's browser compatibility and provide better usability and performance.
Periodically improve the Calendar and Editor.
Enhance stability across the board by adding E2E tests (using Cypress).
Publicly release the comprehensive front-end development guide previously shared internally (including translations in several languages).

Of course, these plans may be scaled down or expanded. Since the developers in charge are working on TOAST UI projects concurrently with developing company services, schedules are adjusted based on service demands.

In 2019, the FE Development Lab will continue to do things worth boasting about, and we will boast sufficiently. We believe that such points of pride become the lab members' self-esteem, and this self-esteem, in turn, will fuel further achievements worth boasting about.