Igalia is an open source tech co-op success story. We have been around for 22 years; we have 140 members. We play an essential role in several open web platform projects such as Chromium/Blink, WebKit (WPE & WebKitGTK), Firefox and Servo. We have contributed to GNOME / GTK+ / Maemo, WebKit / WebKitGtk+ / JSC, Blink / V8, Gecko / SpiderMonkey projects, amongst others. The reason we started as a co-op and the reason the focus of our work is Free and Open Source software are one and the same. Both are implementations of our values, in a word: egalitarianism. In this talk you will hear a bit about our history. We will focus on how we found our FOSS business niche and how we grew from a few friends to 140 people in more than 25 countries all the while maintaining our flat organization structure. You will learn what it's like to participate in a company that is run by an Assembly, the decision making body that includes every Igalian, instead of a hierarchy of bosses. We hope that this talk will expand the limits of your imagination on what a company can look like, and that next time you think about starting your own company or looking for a new job, you consider a co-op! (c) FOSSY (Free and Open Source Yearly) 2023 July 13-16th 2023 Portland, OR https://2023.fossy.us/

1. Inside Igalia
Scaling a Co-op Beyond 100
Members
Valerie Young
FOSSY July 2023
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2. Who am I?
I'm a programmer
Web Platform Team
2 years at Igalia
"pre-partner" at Igalia
I'm a co-op enthusiast!
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3. What is Igalia?
From the outside:
Open Source Software consulting company
Started in 2001
140 people in 25 countries
You can hire us to do lots of things, like:
Writing and implementing web standards
..including language standards and compilers (like
JS)
Support embedding things
Work on the linux multimedia and graphics stack
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4. What is Igalia?
From the inside:
Completely flat, cooperatively owned and
cooperatively managed.
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5. No bosses, no managers, no CEO.
We all make the same amount of money.
We all have equal decision making power.
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6. No bosses, no managers, no CEO.
We all make the same amount of money.
We all have equal decision making power.
And it works!
5.1

7. Some "Success" Metrics
Employee "turnover" rate is <5%
# people who leave / average employees that year
Industry average, across tech "globally" is ~13%*
How long do people stay at Igalia?
Average of those who stay is ~7 years
...and growing! 140 haven't left yet
* https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talent-strategy/industries-with-the-highest-turnover-rates
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8. "co-operatively managed" means...
Igalia exists in the intersection of
all of our values, interests, and needs.
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9. How to scale a co-op beyond 100
members...?
🤩Be a Co-Op! 🤩
[the end]
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10. But, actually, how does it work??
The goal of the rest of this talk.
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11. Lesson #0
Essential ingredients to a successful co-op!
1. Equality
2. Shared values and goals
3. Trust
4. Respect and appreciation
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12. Organization Structure of Igalia: historical
Changed a lot in 22 years...
10 to 140 members!
Maintained goal to be as flat as possible the whole
time.
Even as Igalia grew from one province to 25
countries.
Never took outside investment.
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13. Organizational structure of Igalia:
today
1. Stages: How to advance in the organization
2. Assembly: Our decision making body
3. Agreements: How the company operates
4. Teams and Commissions: Who does what work
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14. Structure of Igalia: Stages
How to advance in the organization
Stage Period Description
Staff 1st year "on-boarding"
Pre-partner Next 2 years Full Decision Maker
Partner Final Form Legal Co-Owner
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15. Goal is for everyone to be partner.
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16. Who makes decisions of Igalia?
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17. How do the "stages" provide essentially ingredients to
successful co-op?
Building trust
Proof we have the shared values and shared goals.
On-boarding to the concept of equality
Grow new Igalian confidence and feeling of
belonging.
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18. Structure of Igalia: "The Assembly"
Our "Decision Making Body"
All of the pre-partner and partner Igalians
Two half-day meetings every two months
An email list
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19. You gotta be kidding...
A whole company runs on two half day meetings every
two months, and an email list??
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20. Major uses of the assembly
Keep Igalians informed about the status of the
company
Start problem solving discussions for yet-unsolved
problems
Get feedback on concrete proposals that effect the
whole company
Final approval (or notice?) of proposals
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21. Concrete examples of assembly material:
1. New clients/contracts
2. New investments (i.e. new skills)
3. New Igalians
4. Money stuff (salaries, donations, savings)
5. Changes to our working conditions (The Agreements)
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22. How does the "assembly" provide essentially ingredients to
successful co-op?
All assembly decisions and the reasoning of all assembly
decisions are available to assembly members, and that
builds trust.
The assembly acts as an oversight body, keeping the
company aligned with our shared values and working
towards our shared goals.
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23. Structure of Igalia: "The Agreements"
Combined values/bylaws/terms of
employment/benefits
Written down and version controlled (PRs welcome!)
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24. Content of "The Agreements"
Our working conditions:
Our values
How much to pay ourselves
We vote to increase this number every year
How many vacation days and other benefits
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25. Content of "The Agreements"
Contain process information:
How to progress through the stages of igalia
How to handle difficult financial times
How to amend the agreements
Which company decisions need consensus from the
assembly, which things need majority
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26. FOSS Interlude
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27. Free Software
Contributions to Free Software: Igalia will give higher priority to the projects
(both internal and external) where the outcome of our work is licensed and
published in an open and free way.
Usage of Free
Igalia will strongly prefer the use of free and open source software tools for
Igalia services and tools, and will only consider non-free software
alternatives when an analysis of available tools shows that there is no free
and open source software solution which fully addresses a particular.
It is strongly recommended that Igalians use as much free software as
possible on the hardware that they use for their work at Igalia (both those
provided by Igalia and personal devices if they are used for Igalia work).
However, each Igalian can ultimately use the software of their choice
and that better fits their needs.
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28. How do the "agreements" provide essentially ingredients
to successful co-op?
Agreements enshrine our shared values and goals,
provides the scaffolding for equality between Igalians.
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29. How do the "agreements" provide essentially ingredients
to successful co-op?
The agreements are flexible and changeable, and this
provides the basis for respect and appreciation,
and equality between older and newer Igalians.
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30. Structure of Igalia: Teams and
Commissions
Who does what work?
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31. 30

32. Technology Teams
Web Platform, Compilers, Graphics, Chromium, Webkit,
Core, Multimedia, Systems
"Consultant" people
programmers
internal and external projects
"Support" people
sales, contracts negotiation, project managing,
running team meetings
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33. Support Team
Company-wide support work
Finances/payroll
System administration/internal tools
Running assembly meetings and polls
Communication and marketing
Generally being helpful and wise
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34. Besides being on a team,
Igalians also have roles and are assigned to commissions.
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35. 34

36. In-Team "Roles"
Work that consultants and support people share.
Work on sales
Work on strategy
Recruiting and interviewing
Communication
Internal training, external demos
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38. Commissions
Company-wide coordination tasks.
Assembly commission
Agreements commission
DEI commission
Strategy commission(s)
Corporate social responsibility commission
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39. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Commission
Fun facts!
We donate 0.7% of our income
To NGOs and non-profits decided by Igalians
For example, a native re-forestation effort in Spain
Also, CSR is responsible for this one-day track on
Tech Co-ops!
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40. The roles, commissions, teams are voluntary and dynamic.
It changes based on interest, need and encouragement.
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41. Essential ingredients to a successful co-
op:
Respect and Appreciation
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42. Just like free software
Every contribution to the company feels like a gift
We can see and appreciate what other people bring
We can avoid the kind of work that we hate*
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43. Just like free software
Every contribution to the company feels like a gift
We can see and appreciate what other people bring
We can avoid the kind of work that we hate*
*Or at least, in Igalia, we will try to look for a solution if
someone has a problem with their current work.
41.1

44. ...many problems similar to FOSS
On-boarding and training new members
Bringing on "junior" developers
Some kinds of diversity
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45. Looking to the future...?
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46. We don't know how much Igalia will
grow...
We discuss every year how much to grow
We want to maintain the culture as we grow
We need to update our processes as we grow
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47. We don't know how much Igalia will
grow...
We discuss every year how much to grow
We want to maintain the culture as we grow
We need to update our processes as we grow
So in general, we grow slowly.
44.1

48. A glimpse of the future:
More independent technology teams
More "support" roles belong to individuals within the
teams
Maybe a federated Igalia(s)?
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49. Questions?
We have a full day of talks about various co-op topics
in this room, and a panel discussion at 4:30 with all
speakers and some extra co-opers.
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