What Open Source Taught Me: Boost Efficiency, Product Thinking, and Passion

At the 2021 Ant Technology Day, the Ant Open‑Source Community hosted a special session where Yu Bo presented "What Open Source Has Given Me," and the following is a textual summary of his talk.

My Open‑Source Journey

From 2009 to 2018, I spent nearly ten years working on open‑source projects, gaining many insights. I first registered on GitHub in the summer of 2009 after having personal projects on Google Code. Around July‑August 2010, I began committing heavily on GitHub, immersing myself in code.

I contributed to several open‑source projects: the module loader Sea.js, the Kissy project during the Taobao era, the early Ant Design, the AntV data‑visualization suite, and others such as egg.js and Chair, though my involvement varied.

Lesson One: Efficient Work Habits

Through open‑source participation I cultivated three key habits, the first being a habit of efficient work, which includes a "documentation‑first" approach.

In 2010 I joined the CommonJS open‑source organization, where the community produced extensive specification documents via a wiki and Google Groups. This emphasis on documentation helped the industry greatly.

Compared with many domestic projects, foreign teams often prioritize documentation, discussing ideas, potential pitfalls, and designs before writing code, leading to clearer implementation.

When you deeply engage in open‑source with a documentation‑first mindset, the benefits are substantial.

The second habit is emphasizing asynchronous collaboration. Tools like GitHub issues and Google Groups enable efficient, asynchronous communication, which I try to promote within my company.

The third habit is "seeking consensus while respecting differences." In large GitHub projects, reaching agreement despite disagreements requires leadership and sometimes personal sacrifice, as illustrated by a C‑language expert who deleted his own elegant module implementation to keep the community aligned.

Finally, I observed that early GitHub communities were technically pure, but later commercial interests entered, making it important to stay focused on genuine contribution and not get distracted by self‑promotion.

Lesson Two: Learning Product Thinking

When treating an open‑source project as a product, three core questions arise:

Why build this project when alternatives like Highcharts or ECharts exist? For AntV's G2 we chose to focus on a graphic grammar rather than configuration‑based visualization, creating a differentiating advantage.

Is there an existing solution, and why should we do it? The answer often ties to business relevance or personal motivation.

What is the project's boundary? Ideal open‑source products reach a stable stage where they no longer need frequent updates but remain useful.

Lesson Three: Passion for the Work

Passion is the final takeaway. Those who have experienced the frenzy of open‑source understand true love for the craft. Recent events, such as the passing of Yuan Lao, reminded me of the deeper purpose behind our work.

When you treat open‑source as your career, you find joy in optimizing code, reducing memory usage, and improving performance, while material concerns fade.

I hope fellow developers engage in and lead open‑source projects to feel this passion, which ultimately makes life more transparent and fulfilling.

In summary, open‑source has given me three major gifts: lifelong efficient work habits, product‑development skills, and a profound passion that reshapes my outlook on life.