Communication and the Open Source Community 79
For those lucky enough to live close to people working on their project, development conversations can take place at the local pub, but it's not always that easy. The typical method of communication in Open Source project development is the time-honored mailing list.
The problems with E-mail are numerous, and using smileys and winks only get you so far. In many ways, people communicating via E-mail have the same issues that were addressed back in the BBS days. Sarcasm is a difficult thing to convey, and most programmers are not professional writers. This is also a problem in the private sector, but it's a lot easier to talk your differences out with a beer after work when the person you're arguing with works two cubicles away, and not on the other side of the planet.
If you're working on an Open Source project, the chances are good that you've never met most of the people working on it, unless you and your project-mates frequent Linux tradeshows and the like. However, the rapid deployment of PGP and GPG help authenticate that you're getting mail from who you think it is, not an impostor.
Impostor or not, it's very easy to get impolite when sitting in front of the keyboard, and Open Source project mailing lists are no exception. You've got the basic bugbears of E-mail communication, combined with the very real chances that most of the developers haven't slept in a few days. It's easy to get snippy, especially with the realization that most of the people working on the project are there because they love to program, not because they are being paid to do so.
While mailing lists represent the tried-and-true method of disseminating information among your development brethen, it's not the only way. IRC has been used as a development meetingplace for a while, but also has its own problems. Netsplits, nick problems, and the occasional channel flood can make things difficult.
Jeremie Plante, occasional developer for RPGen, brought up a communication problem of a temporal nature. "I used to have a friend from another time zone who was coding with me, and that was a problem for IRC meetings and other real-time communication. Open Source development takes place all around the world, so time zone is an issue."
One of the biggest problems is that all arguments are usually very public, and can lead to a political struggle within the project. The argument between Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens, although it took place over a year ago, is still fresh in people's minds. When the mainstream media has their ears on the Linux railroad track listening for the oncoming train, they are more than willing to consider an argument between two Linux people as a portent that the house of cards is about to fall. Decentralization of control leads people to believe that just about anyone can be in charge, and the media will consistently rally around the loudest.
Debates and arguments about licensing and definitions of 'free software' will continue to rage on in newsgroups, mailing lists and IRC channels. While some view these issues as divisive, many more inside the community feel that these arguments and debates represent the diversity necessary for Open Source to remain strong and successful.
Re:Huh? (Score:1)
Re:THANKS EMMET!! (Score:1)
Wow! Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I think that Rob and Jeff do a wonderful job already. I'm only interested in forcing useless people to abdicate their power in favor of mine. Other than that, you're not doing anything special.
In many ways, it's a particular anarchist point of view. There are actually a small percentage of anarchists who are actually interested in making life better; the other percentage just want to break stuff.
So, go ahead, destroy that government building. Burn down that McDonald's. But you better put something worthwhile in it's place.
--Emmett
Re:programmer ego (Score:1)
Please, tell us, what should we do?
OG.
Re:Communications & Software Development (Score:1)
But how do you judge success? Some are obvious (eg. Linux), but others less so. For example, my most successful project eGTK [netlabs.net] has about 4 to 5 active developers, about 60 subscribers to our mailing list and I don't really know how many users. Does this qualify?
In a corporation you can assign tasks to people. In an open source project you have to hope that someone will come and say "oh, that's interesting let me code that".
Also, I don't believe that you can lead an open-source project without coding yourself, whereas I've worked on many projects where the project manager did not write a line of code.
Another big difference between open-source and corporate project is schedules. OSS project have none - this makes a big difference.
I've been programming professionally for nearly 12 years, and have worked on a lot of different projects in that time.
Well, I've been coding for money for about twice as long... :-)
It's the source, Luke! (Score:1)
I think that this continual code review contributes to quality of the software more than anything else.
Re:Communications & Software Development (Score:1)
Actually I think there is a lot of difference. In an OSS project you cannot force anyone to do anything, and it would be very hard to lead a project without doing a lot of coding yourself.
You must stay polite at all times, and make sure to acknowledge everyone's contribution. After all the developers aren't getting paid to code.
Re:Very shortsighted (Score:1)
Certainly communicating over long distances via the written word is a solved problem, but that's not the problem we're facing. We have a very fast medium here, where instant responses are expected and provided. When people are in a world where "written" means "takes days, if not weeks to get to the reader" it is one in which people will naturaly take the time to make sure that the message is perfect, and to read & reread the letter to make sure they understand it correctly. I don't see any reason to think this has anything to do with education.
I think it's true that we need to pay more attention to our writing skills, and to our reading comprehension skills, but we're also going to have to accept that confusion will happen. So in addition to the above, we need to learn to get over misunderstandings when they happen.
Re:It's all new, but it'll settle down (Score:1)
And how will it settle down? Computer software is going to change human nature? Sorry but it's not going to happen. I really cannot make head or tails about what the article is about, ie poorly written article with no substance.
Anyway. Your points are..
Traditional programming 1/2 century of maturity OSS 5 years to climb out of ad-hoc status
OSS rebellion and enterprise
Rebellions attract fractious people who have emotional attachments to "the Cause"
This will settle down when
OSS is mainstream
People start calmly devoting attention to process design rather than holy wars
In your opinion no one wants to be known as the asshole.
==========================
Ewww, where to begin.
Traditional programming 1/2 century of maturity OSS 5 years to climb out of ad-hoc status
I don't see what criteria you are using to differentiate between open source software and traditional programming. The way I see it open source is traditional programming.
I have been sharing my work with others on bbs systems, tymnet, fido, etc for that last 20 years. As such I can definately attest to the fact that a majority of the code I dealt with during that time was open source. It might not have had the neat little OSS symbol, but it's been there. A lot of the programmers that work on coding in their free time also do so professionally. So in essence they are traditional programmers.
OSS rebellion and enterprise
Rebellions attract fractious people who have emotional attachments to "the Cause"
The thing that strikes me is your reference that OSS is almost as much as a rebellion as an enterprise. But I don't understand how you can even consider it an enterprise. Enterprises have to do with business plans, profit and for profit ventures. This implies cash. The gain in OSS is the knowledge gained not a financial incentive.
Thus it is my opinion that we can do away with the enterprise and just say that OSS is a rebellion, which isn't correct either since I merely want something that works or that I can fix if there is a problem, but I'll leave that for another time.
So that leaves us with just the rebellion. Websters defines fractious, yes I had to look up the word,
fractious (frkshs) adj.
This appears to be circular logic. OSS is a rebellion and thus attracts rebels? If someone is in a rebellion are they not considered by default rebels? And what pray tell has being a rebel to do with flaming someone? Or are you talking about the conformist rebel who rebels by doing the opposite of everything, ie drugs, break laws, exposing themselves to children, etc, ie behaving in the complete opposite of society? These people are not rebels they are conformist who conform to the opposite of social norms. Real rebels do what they feel is "right" not what society views as "wrong"..Sorry for the rant...
This will settle down when OSS is mainstream
I don't know what you mean by mainstream. The normal business process is to produce your software and keep it closed source so that everyone else has to spend just as much money as you did developing it, thus limiting the playing field because it's expensive to make an OS. IBM pulled out of the competition because it was too expense for them and they could not compete with windows.
So in order for OSS to become mainstream it would probably have to become closed source and if it did that then it wouldn't be OSS.
Perhaps you meant that the mainstream comes to include OSS as a standard? But that isn't going to change the people in the communitee...
Ahhh, I see you meant when the communitee starts to get real programmers involved. Ah, is this because the current members are all a bunch of children? So where would the "real" programmers come from? I notice from your resume' that you have done MSaccess programming. Shall, I let the reader draw his/her own conclusions?
No, actually I won't. As a former MCP MSAcess and as a current Senior Oracle DBA, Senior UNIX administrator, Senior Developer, and Senior Automation Specialist. I think it's well within my knowledge to state that Access is a fairly good IDE, but shouldn't be used as a general database tool for the end user.
I have a number of reasons for this, but won't post them here. If you want to discuss it feel free to respond.
This will settle down when People start calmly devoting attention to process design rather than holy wars
This will never happen. The holy wars where held long ago, but human nature is still the same. It's a lot lower key, mostly Iran and Iraq aren't fighting at the moment but others are. And have you ever seen how many fights break out at professional football games?
Sorry, back to the point. The fact is that people have opinions and like to get their point across. This is not going to change. If you think that tradition programming doesn't happen you are mistaken. The article is mentioning the way a lot of these email messages are like hanging your laundry out so that anyone can see and thus hurting the communitee because financial types will see it as unstable. The truth though is that there are always disagreements no matter what line of business you are in. I occassionally have flame wars with my boss, though rarely with my coworkers. My boss and I understand that each of us come from a different background. He is production, ie fix it now ignore the bugs, and I am development, ie gotta make this thing bulletproof before releasing it. So we argue quite often. No voices are raised, we communicate in reasonable tones, but make no mistakes we overly critisize(sp?) quite a bit. It actually makes a good working environment for me. I fully respect my boss and he respects me. We say our peice try to influence the other one and usually come up to a mutually acceptable accomidation.
This is of course behind closed doors. Any time we go to a meeting, either my boss or I will take charge and the other one will not contradict the other. Thus everyone sees my group and a solid united whole, but appearances can be deceiving.
More on this in a sec, I want to wrap up your last point.
In your opinion no one wants to be known as the asshole.
I have to disagree with this. I frequently find people that enjoy being assholes. In fact, while I normally sit back and relax at times I like to jump up on my soapbox and do some screaming, ie like this post? Translation: I have too much work to do and I generally don't have enough time to talk to anyone else and express my opinions.
Now on to the actual article itself.
I'm not impressed by the article. The author jumps all over the place and never really clarifies his points. This is what I think he is saying.
Basically, the author should have said something like, "This is what I see, anyone care to comment on the state of things?" He also should have more clearly organized his writing. But be that as it may, I wanted to reply.The only way to get rid of the flamers is to institute some type of censorship. But if you do that you will probably start to stagnate because you will have to be part of the club to get heard.
This is human nature.
I see it as a benefit that anyone can talk. Most people are reasonable and not much actual flaming goes on. Most flamers are new people that have not found their place in the "virtual world" yet and are just showing how macho they are, because they are actually nervous about where they are. Some are grouchy by nature and will go away soon enough, some have a point they want to make, some just enjoy stirring it up, ie Katz anyone? Grin
The thing is, if someone is offending you, filter them out. Don't let the fact that someone else is being uncivil cause you to become upset.
As for the financial community... Who cares, the guys writing this stuff generally don't. I write code to fix problems I see. I appreciate others sharing their work with me. Thus I contribute to them. I work at a real job, I make enough money to live on. I don't work on projects because I need the money. I don't want a second job.
The only people that should be concerned about the financial community are companies like Redhat and Va Research. It should be very important to them. But for the rest of us, Linux is improving everyday. Hurd is coming along, Gnome and KDE are benefiting from competition. So the development community is thriving. It's nice that people outside the community are giving us such a lot of press and exposure, but in the end the community is still that a community where people are able to come and go as they please. It won't affect the community one way or another.
Linus leaving would just mean that he would be replaced. Someone would step up to the plate. Other people may or may not accept that and may choose a different leader. But things would work out because I have a os that works now. I don't have to upgrade.
And if linux can lose Linus and still keep running, there is no reason to worry about the financial community.
Well time for me to get back to work.
Lando
Re:BSD vs. GPL (Score:1)
That has nothing to do with the BSD or GPL license. There's many GPL'd developments going on with a "core group" as well.
I don't want to start any of your people's damn religious wars
I think you do.
Re:You gotta behave in public (Score:1)
Re:why we can't communicate (Score:1)
Dude.
You should consider taking smaller doses of Underworld [dirty.org] at a time.
Can't have you imitate Karl's cool lyrics, can we? =P
-- Underworld, Dirty Epic (DubNoBassWithMyHeadMan)
np: Leak - Sleeping Wide Awake (Demo CD)
As always under permanent deconstruction.
It's All Old, With New Press Coverage (Score:1)
There also are a bunch of us professional programmers with 20 years of experience who have adopted Linux and are actually applying our experience to Open Source. Sometimes you'll find data structures and program designs that look odd or sleek, and you just don't know that they came from someone who uses such tricks of the trade routinely.
For that matter, 30 years ago the mainframe manufacturers had source code available to customers and BBSes where we shared patches and quirks. Slashdot and Freshmeat are merely prettier.
Re:I assume you're talking to me... (Score:1)
Actually in most programming projects there tend to be very few people on the team who have been programming for 20 years. Darned if I know why...
<
Re:Computer-mediated COMMUNITIES (Score:1)
Another thing (Score:1)
It happens every now and then for me on IRC etc. that people completely misunderstand me when talking english even though I consider my english to be quite good (compared to many other europeans). Things like humour, sarcasm etc. are especially hard, problems like this rarely occur when communicating with others in your native language =)
Re:Literary quality in communication does help (Score:1)
Many people on Open Source malling lists are very intellegent, but you cannot refuse entry to those who you don't want to "hire." They will post hastily and sometimes beligerently. And in time they will get a better feel for the medium. Hopefully.
Sorry
Re:Huh?.... Huh, indeed! (Score:1)
I would argue that the proper way to compare these devlelopment methods would be to compare the best that each has to offer, not the worst.
Re:why we can't communicate (Score:1)
More importantly, the fact that the human brain does this has significant impact on the communication question.
If you do not express yourself clearly, your readers will attempt to figure it out anyway. The result may bear little resemblance to your intent.
even Perl is affected (Score:1)
This article is just in time to draw attention to the problems in Perl land.
will the last one leaving please turn the lights out, please? [mpe.mpg.de]
Or . . . (Score:1)
which was the point I was making. And I get offtopic and funny. Typical
Re:"Open-source" communication styles (Score:1)
Re:why we can't communicate (Score:1)
Conversations that are meant to be [semi-]private can be private with the proper encryption. Not everything needs to be discussed with everyone. That would lead to design-by-committee with a vengeance. And to a lot of time and energy spend with various trolls, agents provacateur and just plain cluelessness.
Also it would help to do more Internet Phone with maybe a web cam going. Especially when discussing stuff that is more critical or delicate.
What is out there in open source conferencing software?
Re:Well there are other ways of settling differenc (Score:1)
that's exactly why.... (Score:1)
-motardo
Re:Oh, for Christ's sake . . . (Score:1)
Most of the new developers are going to college and are not totally aware of these things. Considering the number of people who don't conduct themselves properly on slashdot I think this is an issue.
Re:why we can't communicate (Score:1)
A flamin' lame-o like me can get moderated up but the ghost of William Burroughs can't?
Life is stupid.
Open Source challenging but rewarding (Score:1)
I can see how all of these issues could pose some problems, but the proliferation of great free software is testament to the fact that Open Source works.
As to the hot debates among open source authors, proponents etc. someone once said, "It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it."
At least the Open Source communtity is open to discussion and welcomes criticism and challenges.
-----
"I will be as a fly on the wall... I shall slip amongst them like a great
Tools, Language and Language Tools (Score:1)
One of the most encouraging trends in OSS developments these days is the development of new tools allowing people to communicate while minimizing strife and misunderstanding.
Some examples that really work:Sourceforge is a centralized depot where tools like CVS, mailing lists, and such are to be found, one problem is that sf does not have anything like a moderation/review system in place to discriminate the good the bad and the ugly.
Zope is a publishing environment that allows pretty much infinite flexibility and supports many different styles of communication.
Wiki is more a paradigm than a piece of software. The best explanation of Wiki is that it's a section of serverspace that anyone can edit at any time. Totally insecure, extremely open, it's very much public cyberspace. One of the surprising things about wikis is that even though they are very open the level of discourse is usually quite high...
What's generally lacking so far in Opensource is a widely used means of prioritizing projects and recruiting resources. But that may not be such a bad thing, after all experimentation is what drives the whole ball of mud forward, eh?
Re:Not Just OS Problem / Bad Writing - Where B Too (Score:1)
Regarding your bandwidth concerns, I use Speak Freely to talk to my friend in Korea (I'm in Australia) and its clear and very fast. I am connected by 33.6 modem with an ISP notorious for latency woes. Speak Freely has a range of compression algorithms to use, so there's little worry there. I'm not affiliated with them by any means of course.. just a happy user
Re:How's your high school Greek? (Score:1)
Wow. I agree with almost all of your assessment of 18th-19th c. education. (Just to be contrary, I'd like to point out that an awareness of art history is also a relatively new phenomenon. In particular, Bach and other dead composers' works were only very rarely performed before the advent of recording, and photography has made familiarity with a large body of visual work much more practical.)
But in terms of familiarity with literature and clarity of writing the intelligentsia of today are pretty pathetic. I have no doubt that the average 19th century American with an 8th grade education could write much more clearly than the average American college graduate of today. I know that my writing is better than most, and it still sucks real bad.
Furthermore, although our technical knowledge is much more advanced, thinking and writing clearly are still by far the most important skills for any information worker. The best scientists are not only expert in their field -- they are also communicate effectively and think precisely.
timezones (Score:1)
Seriously (or not so) speaking, I wish the good old virtual reality should come soon! Imagine the ease of things, just reach up and pull the calculator from clouds, or humm some melody in your mind and the orchestra plays it without you writing single piece of note.
:-) (Score:1)
_________________________
I assume you're talking to me... (Score:1)
I didn't mean to suggest that every aspect of OSS is totally different from traditional programming. I certainly don't mean to suggest that
All I'm saying is that things are chaotic now. BSD had years to mature in relative obscurity, but Linux has drawn a great deal of interest lately and powerful forces have grown interested in it. Strains that were less evident before are now going to have to be overcome with some new tactics, or at least by adapting the old tactics to a new world and teaching them to the young.
-N
Why don't you write a book no one will read? (Score:1)
You seem to think that OSS is traditional. Perhaps you feel it is a more traditional model than that of closed source internal projects. That can be argued, but in the end it's not relevant to the discussion of OSS vs proprietary software. Massive collaborative projects of today's Linux have no tradition that I know of, and they are what is meant by OSS, not simply that of programmers coding in their spare time.
As for your indictment of my use of the word "enterprise" - perhaps you should look up the word perfore you impugn my usage.
Further, a rebellion is not defined as a collection of rebellious people. What I said about fractious people populating the OSS rebellion is NOT a tautology. Peopel who are not normally rebellious may join a rebellion, and people with rebellious proclivities may choose not to rebel in fact.
Your assumption that proprietary software will always constitute the heart of mainstream programming projects is perhaps true, but perhaps it is not. You make a claim there that many would argue with. I might, and I might not. We shall have to simply wait and see for the final word on that.
Finally, it would appear that I have to concede that some people want to be the asshole, since you provide such a good example with your post. However, the fact is that any project manager who was forced to listen to your specious arguments day after day would either throw you off the team or find a way to ignore you.
-N
That's asking a bit much, eh? (Score:1)
Don't you think that project managers and the ad-hoc teams that constitute most of the open-source free labor out there do what they can to support literacy? That part is a no-brainer. What is more difficult is HOW to teach these footsoldiers of the OSS movement to read and write well. Just saying that it should be done as if it were a trivial task is awfully denigrating to all those out there who have been worrying at this problem for years.
-N
Virtual is as virtual does (Score:1)
Laws, sausages, and now software... (Score:2)
Seriously, my opinion is that there isn't a problem. Frankly, the debates open source has are exceptionally polite and professional. This is how programmers talk to each other- cope with it. They do it in the corporate world as well.
There are three differences. First of all, it's done behind closed doors, so you never hear of the personality conflicts, shouting matches, and even physical assaults, that occur. All you see is the corporate flack painting a Leninist picture of unity of purpose as the entire company strides in lockstep towards a glorious future of increasing shareholder equity. Pay no attention to the men behind the curtain.
Second, in open source, your career isn't threatened by the decisions made. And, by armchair phsycoanalyst extension, neither is your identity. A better example of this than the Bruce Perens/Eric Raymond/Richard Stallman bruhaha is the Gnome/KDE conflict.
In a corporate environment, only one of Gnome or KDE would be developed. The other team would be told "Sorry- you can't work on that anymore, and we're going to throw all of your work into the bit bucket, where it'll never see the light of day again. Better luck next project." Development on Gnome does not preclude development on KDE, or vice versa, giving advocates on both sides room to back off and not take it so personally.
Of course, there is still a lot of strutting and bragging that goes on- "My project is better than yours!" (Especially from those who are at most marginally associated with the projects- AC, this means *YOU*. You rarely see this sort of strutting from the project leads). This is normal, and goes on in the corporate world as well. Heck, it's natural human behavior- listen to new parents talking about their kids.
The third difference are that the debates are public.
Brian
IPSec's Bloody History (Score:2)
I *just* discovered IPSec's rather bloody implementation history. I think I'm just gonna Res Ipsa Loquitar here...trust me. If you ever wondered whether RFC's had any drama in their birth, well...
Take a peek:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:gnietf.vls
http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/linux-ipsec/h
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
You gotta behave in public (Score:2)
No doubt that's true, but it seems to me to miss the point. To the degree that you're conducting activities in the public view, you need to behave differently.
BSD vs. GPL (Score:2)
Not Just OS Problem / Bad Writing - Where B Tools? (Score:2)
Email and Listservs are very useful because you get a nice record of everything to reference later. Another nice thing about email is that it encourages (at least in theory) people to think carefully about what they want to say, and how to say it. Unfortunately, the latency is high, and for highly interactive exchanges, this can slow things seriously. IRC would be a decent way to work, or perhaps even just ICQ/AOLIM or the like. Haven't tried it yet.
We use the phone a lot. It's nice to be getting payed, because you can justify this. Of course, conference calls for OSS development is sort of out of the question.
This brings an interesting question - where are strong realtime collaboration tools? Preferably free ones. While not everyone has a fast connection yet, soon voice-over-ip should be plausable.
Also, I know of commercial collaborative-whiteboard type applications. I can imagine how this could be very useful. We recently flew the dutchies here just so we could draw shit on paper/walls.
So, who wants to start a conference-call/shared whiteboard OS project with me?
Second Star To The Right (Score:2)
I'd rather be able to sail toward fish and turn up toward tide pool with a little sidewinder than be restricted by the user interface which you're looking at but merely wrapped around you.
This 70's Show (Score:2)
This /. BBS has a prettier look but is very similar to forums [stevens-tech.edu] back then (and PLATO [wired.com] had graphics then, even if only in orange-on-black), although now there's a Web to point links at. IRC is old hat also, there were talk programs on hundred-user systems with dozens of participants -- using a network instead of a central computer is only an implementation detail.
Amen, brother! (Score:2)
On the other hand, I've known a few old geezers (no other word for it, even though they were young) who insisted that every meaningful discovery in computer science was made by 1982. Nothing since then - Red-Black trees, splay trees, the astoundishing advances in solving matrix equations, are worth learning or using.
How's your high school Greek? (Score:2)
<ul>
<li>High schools either did not exist, or were a weird idea out of the rebellious American colonies. The elite had private tutors, but the vast majority of the public learned from on the job. BTW, adolescence and even "childhood" are modern concepts. Even a 6-year-old can work in the field pulling weeds, etc.
<li>In the 19th Century, when universal public schooling was becoming widespread most working people dropped out by the 8th grade. Among blue collar urban workers and rural residents a 4th grade education wasn't uncommon.
<li>A typical 12th grade education included a strong emphasis on the classics - Latin and Greek, with an extensive reading of the classics in their native language. Don't believe me? - look up the history of the Kansas City public schools sometime.
<li>Even "professionals" often had shockingly modest backgrounds, in modern eyes. A country doctor might not even have a high school degree, and no collegiate experience outside of "medical school." Don't forget that this period predates not only drug therapy (which requires a solid foundation of organic chemistry), it predates the introduction of "germ theory." A modern boy scout with a "first aid" merit badge knows more about medicine than most of these doctors... with the notable exception of practical experience.
<li>A college degree was a mark of extremely priviledged background. There were no college majors as we know them today - everyone studied everything. (Hence the term "university".) Of course, to them "everything" meant more Classics, modern theology, and maybe an incidental class or two to cover everything that happened in the past 1500 years. IIRC the first College of Engineering wasn't founded until well into the Industrial Revolution -- definitely after the era of rapid transcontinental communications.
<li>Finally, take a close look at the educational credentials of our modern heros. Charles Darwin was a professor of theology - IIRC the only college degree granted in England at the time he was a student. I'm not so sure about James Watt, but again I'm sure it was primarily, if not exclusively, classical and Christian theologian.
</ul>
And never forget that this period was far more classist than ours. There were no "self-made men" - most other business owners would shun someone without the proper background regardless of the merits of their business offer.
In this environment, <b>of course</b> your average business correspondence would shame modern authors. However, if you make this a fair fight and compare the top 2% of the population you'll find that our ancestors come across as one trick ponies. They could write better, but we are better at communicating to the masses. They would have a better understanding of classical music, painting and sculpture, but we have a better understanding of other culture's art and abstract art. The know Christian theology... and why everyone else is going to Hell. We have an awareness, at some basic level, of other theologies. Their natural science is laughable - the modern 2% reads Scientific American, a magazine which wasn't founded until after the end of the period your refer to.
Overall, I think I prefer generalists who occasionally have a hard time articulating their ideas than one-trick ponies whose primary skill, in hindsite, was in running the European Colonial system.
Re:why we can't communicate (Score:2)
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
Computer-mediated COMMUNITIES (Score:2)
BTW, I'm talking about this paper on the UC Berkeley campus this weekend. [debateit.net]
Structure of technology affects communication (Score:2)
I wrote a paper a while back about whether/why Slashdot is a successful 'community' and talked a bit about communication structures, kinda. Feel free to email me for it.
BTW, I'm talking about this paper on the UC Berkeley campus this weekend. [debateit.net]
"Open-source" communication styles (Score:2)
BTW, I'm talking about this paper on the UC Berkeley campus this weekend. [debateit.net]
Both strength and weakness (Score:2)
As for the disputes, I have found that participation in open source mailing lists has led me to be more polite, and more deliberate in what I say. I try not to give offense, even while I am opinionated. Based on what I have seen, there are a lot of people who act the same way. We are trying to exchange ideas and we are willing to put in the effort to make it work.
Well there are other ways of settling differences (Score:2)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
are really good, all hail open source." It just seemed like an empty piece of propaganda.. Do we really need that?
Development of open source is not the only development model where this is a problem. Increasingly companies are hiring coders. Now consider that if I want the best I may not be able to have that person get into the office. Communication via e-mail and chat systems would become an ideal solution to that problem. All code could be done via ssh or whatever with cvs.
So basically this is not propaganda but a methodology that is almost necessary given specific circumstances.
As with everything... (Score:2)
A few obvious guidelines:
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Re:Communications & Software Development (Score:2)
In my experience the best programmers on any team are not motivated by money or the threat of losing their jobs. The portrait of a hacker [tuxedo.org] from the Jargon File [tuxedo.org] is very accurate in describing what motivates good programmers. Let's face it, any halfway talented code-jockey can quit his job and get one paying the same (or more) quite easily; this has been the case for several years at least, and probably will remain so in the forseable future. If you don't keep your hacker happy, she'll walk, regardless of what you're paying her. If you have to hold a gun to your programmer's heads to get work out of them, you need to take a serious look at your corporate culture.
I've been programming professionally for nearly 12 years, and have worked on a lot of different projects in that time. Without exception, the projects that had an opressive enviornment worked slave-driver hours, and produced crappy, bug-ridden, ugly software. The projects that produced good results were the teams that fostered a fun working enviornment. In my experience at least, productivity and quality of work are directly proportionate to team morale.
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
Thinking about communication... (Score:2)
It seems that email is often too harsh, because the "normal" way of social control does not work. But this social control often is there because someone is the chef, and because agreeing to someone's else sayings has something to do with the figures on my paycheck...
In "normal" companies the decision-makers are often not the same people that are competent enough to make this decision. And often we struggle to agree with them because this will push our career up. Ever wondered why companies do not often use the technical optimal solution?
The nice thing in OSS: this kind of social engineering does not work quite the same way. We listen to Linus because most of us agreed that he is competent enough to make a decsision - not because he is good at playing career-games most adult people are wasting their time with.
That is, the technical best solutions are discussed in an open atmosphere by people willing to archieve something other than climbing the social ladder.
This is: to me, even the flame wars will do us better than the I-agree-with-you-because-you-pay-me. And it seems: OSS has shown this already.
It's all new, but it'll settle down (Score:2)
Perhaps even more important, though, is that OSS is, right now, almost as much a rebellion as an enterprise all its own. Rebellions always attract fractious people who have an emotional attachment to "the cause". When OSS becomes mainstream and people start calmly devoting more attention to processs design than holy wars, most of the flame wars will settle down, IMHO. No one wants to be known as the asshole.
-N
Huh? (Score:3)
why we can't communicate (Score:3)
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programmer ego (Score:3)
It seems to me that we nerds have religious attachments to whatever our toy-of-choice is. That's why flame wars and public arguments erupt. One of the problems in developer communication comes from the formation of an open source process: since anyone can come in at any time, different philosophies of approaching the same problem are constantly introduced. The positive effect of this is sometimes overweighed by the inevitable "that's a stupid way to do that. Everybody with half a brain (read: everyone who thinks like I do) knows that the best way to do that is x.")
Since programming is usually such a solitary exercise, I wonder if we get too used to working in our own worlds and have a hard time learning to operate in someone else's. What some of us forget from time to time, though, is that for the process to work, we HAVE to compromise occasionally. <ASBESTOS> Wish someone had told the xemacs crowd that...</ASBESTOS> :)
Literary quality in communication does help (Score:3)
It can be done. See The Autodesk File [fourmilab.to], a collection of memos from the early days of Autodesk. Autodesk started out with thirteen programmers working out of their homes, coordinated almost entirely by E-mail. AutoCAD was written in that environment.
As Autodesk became more successful, they continued to insist on literacy. From an Autodesk job ad of 1986:
You'll be literate, and able to communicate complicated technical concepts in simple and readable language. Your work documentation will meet the standards of the best tech writers and be suitable for immediate inclusion in our user manuals. You'll be able to express yourself clearly and persuasively, whether in a design session or while speaking with prospective customers at a trade show.
That's how it's done.
Communications & Software Development (Score:3)
Communication is always a challenge in any software development effort. The problem is worse in a distributed effort like an open-source project, because face-to-face communication is difficult, if not impossible. Voice-over-IP and IP videoconferencing technology is maturing rapidly and will help in this regard; but even this is still a pale imitation to face-to-face communication. It may be low-tech, but a conference room with a white board is still one of the most efficient programming tools around.
The real question here is, I think, "How do you run a successful open-source software project." The answer is that running a successful open-source project isn't much different than running a sucessful closed-source project. From a programming & leadership standpoint, there isn't really much difference between the two. The main difference is that in OSS, it's rare for the team members to meet face-to-face; but this isn't actually all that uncommon in the traditional corporate IS world, especially in big companies. All the lessons learned from corporate software project management still apply to OSS. Good programming and project management principles are universal -- the distribution model is (mostly) irrelvant to the development process
Open-source isn't a panacea; just because it's GPL'ed dosn't gaurantee that a project will be successful. For every OSS success story like Linux, Apache, or GCC there are a dozen OSS projects that are utter crap.
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
Very shortsighted (Score:4)
This sentence is just deliciously indicative of the REAL problem: education, particularly reading/writing skills.
"...back in the BBS days"? How about back in the pre-computer days. Back in the days where, not only did you have to express yourself fully and clearly but ALSO concisely (paper's expensive) AND with a large message latency (several weeks for the Trans-Atlantic mail service).
Managing a large, far-flung project via written communication is not an unsolved problem, although it is clearly a forgotten one. What's the first step? Learn to read. Second? Learn to write.
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Communication problems actually a benefit (Score:5)
Open source projects involve many people, in different geographical areas, from different backgrounds, often speaking different languages. This level of diversity would be near impossible to manage in a 'traditional' conference room.
The ego factor alone, with cultural alignments taking hold against those who do not pronounce something correctly... Office in-fighting.
The fact that there is so much difficulty bridging interpersonal differences, time zones, cultures, genders (I know, a little) actually helps open source projects get done.
People know that communication is difficult, and they make an effort to circumvent the problems. Knowing that sarcasm is hard to convey, that gestures are not part of the conversation, that tone of voice does not translate into ASCII, all this makes for BETTER communication.
The information that flies between open source developers is often clearer and less ambiguous than corporate memos. There's no room between the lines, so everything needs to get spelled out. In my office, the biggest source of frustration is not the lack of communication, it's the 'fluffiness' of communication.
Memos are sent in response to memos, but do not say anything. Information is provided by indirect reference, not directly (not my job to keep you informed). Everything is phrased in such a was that any semblamce of commitment to anything is purely implicit (it depends on what "it" means to YOU). Every concrete piece of information must be assumed, and things are only stated outright behind closed doors, so it's my word against yours. You CAN'T do that when your developers are half way around the world, and read your email with a dictionary in hand.
The open-forum nature of open source communication also keeps the politics and marketting from taking center stage in the development of the product. There are few clandestine meeting, and few sideways glances. The product is developed on it's merits, and the people with the right skills do the right work.
Competence can be faked in an office, and assignments can be made by and to the wrong people. You can fool the fans, but not the players, and in open source - with poor communication, everyone's a player.
So, sensitivity to the challenge of communication results in less ambiguity and BS-bingo; AND on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog, but everyone knows you can't code.