Stefano Mazzocchi wrote: > > In my mind, all this long trail of thoughs yields the following > equation: > > metacommunity size * community coherence * individual freedom = > constant > > in result, if we unify the two projects, we double the size of the > metacommunity and we must pay the price of decreased coherence and/or > decreased individual freedom.
So, if we half the community size we double the coherence and/or individual freedom? What happens if we half it again? Hmmm. I guess the "optimum" community size is "1". Reductio ad Absurdum I think this equation misses the important second order affects of collaboration. My feeling is that communities need a critical mass, as do meta-communities. I'm not sure what that size is, but in my mind the XML project has not reached it. And it is not just size that is the issue, it is the presence (or lack) of people who cross pollinate ideas. Within Jakarta, this is being done on an ever increasing scale. Perhaps a metric that would be more useful is to contemplate the size of the intersection between the subscribers to any two mailing lists picked at random. Without looking, it is clear to me that however you choose to quantify this metric, Jakarta would greatly exceed XML. What you have observed lately has been a spike of activity on the general mailing list. One thread dealt with the ever popular coding style issues (which unfortunately overwhelmed the more important underlying issue that Jon was trying to get us to face). The other thread dealt with the intentionally high threshold that we have for accepting new Jakarta projects. Now for a thought experiment: if POI were added to Jakarta, would this metric overall increase or decrease for Jakarta? If POI were added to XML, would the metric overall increase or decrease? Ignoring the fact that the following are clearly related, which is more important: community coherence or mission coherence? - Sam Ruby -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
