On Sunday, December 1, 2002, at 04:39 PM, Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
This proposal is exactly about 'puzzling out how to do that productively in cooperative volunteer teams'.
That's a hypothesis. I don't particularly buy into it. I'm one of those people who considers the term "company party" a bit of an oxymoron.
The world is full of people I don't particularly want to be closer too, but with whom I'm happy to work closely. I like the urban rather than the small town model of what makes a vibrant community.
The ASF is currently fragmented. Allow me to say "balkanized".
The fragmentation that concerns me is around only a few things. I don't feel that getting to know all the folks in all the projects is one them.
I see this as a problem. I want to 'puzzle out' how to solve this problem and I think that giving more personal context will help out.
Possibly, possibly not. I've found it fascinating how not knowing personal details seems to have enabled a focus on the task rather than the peripheral. My contributions to these projects is independent of my age, my job, my achievements, my screw ups, my degree.
This is my personal experience. You might disagree. But try to remember if knowing apache group members in person helped the creation of the httpd community.
I was _very late_ to the party, but my impression is that in the majority of cases only a handful knew each other outside the work until the decision was taken to consider forming the foundation. I've still not met the majority of the HTTPD PMC, nor do I know their age, their past, their hobbies, etc. etc.
Note that if you form loyalties based on other attributes, say a common love of ballroom dancing, then when it comes time to argue out a tough decision about memory management you might just dodge the hard work to maintain that relationship.
- ben
