Re: [tw] Business Thought [was: Important Message from Eric]
On Thu, 10 Nov 2011, Miles Fidelman wrote: Seems to me that, for Tiddly to move down that path, some core group needs to provide the focus for a year or two - and Jerymy and Erik seem like the obvious candidates. Yes, this I agree with and am fully behind. -- Chris Dent http://burningchrome.com/ [...] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To post to this group, send email to tiddlywiki@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tiddlywiki+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki?hl=en.
Re: [tw] Business Thought [was: Important Message from Eric]
Jeremy Ruston wrote: Great post, thanks Chris. Your perspective on BT and Osmosoft is very valuable. At some point, Tiddly is going to live or die by whether or not the folks most committed to it find a long-term model for supporting the software and themselves. I completely disagree with this, and I think it is the prevelance of this attitude in this thread which has contributed to me becoming angry and finding it hard to find a way into the thread that is clear and focused. The core of Mile's observation applies to both of us, though: we're trying to secure a long term model for supporting ourselves while we work on the software. I guess your point is that if either of us failed to establish a viable model, then it shouldn't necessarily imply the death of the software. Perhaps, more to the point, my observation, across multiple open source (and other projects), dating pretty far back (ARPANET era) is that "communities" are very amorphous things that are not capable of very much without a level of organization. In the early stage, that organization most often comes from an individual or core group who is/are most committed to the project (usually the founders), eventually evolving into an established set of procedures, tools, roles, etc. that allow the project to move forward without them. Perhaps the best example of this is the Apache daemon - starting as a funded R&D project at NCSA (the "NCSA Daemon") with a team of people behind it, with funding behind them. After a while, two things happened: - a user community had developed around Apache - NCSA decided it was no longer "researchy" and decided to kill its involvement Those two events led to a lot of turmoil, that, after several incarnations, led to the Apache Software Foundation as a long-term home, and the ecosystem, infrastructure, and community that maintains ongoing support and development. (This is, of course, a simplified version of the history - a better telling, and one that might be educational in our context, is at http://httpd.apache.org/ABOUT_APACHE.html) There are lots more open source projects that have disappeared into oblivion than have gone on to long-term viability. Survival seems to be a mix of BOTH doing something useful to a large community, AND a small leadership group that organizes the effort in a way that puts it on a long-term, sustainable path. It probably doesn't matter if that group is doing it for commercial reasons (e.g., building a company around a core piece of open source code) or other reasons - though generally that core group needs to find a way to support themselves and their efforts. Whether it's a supportive employer (perhaps one who uses or otherwise benefits from the software), or a business organized around the software, both people and projects have real expenses - and it's a lot easier to focus if one's "day job" aligns with the project. Seems to me that, for Tiddly to move down that path, some core group needs to provide the focus for a year or two - and Jerymy and Erik seem like the obvious candidates. Just one man's opinion, of course. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To post to this group, send email to tiddlywiki@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tiddlywiki+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki?hl=en.
Re: [tw] Business Thought [was: Important Message from Eric]
On Thu, 10 Nov 2011, Jeremy Ruston wrote: The core of Mile's observation applies to both of us, though: we're trying to secure a long term model for supporting ourselves while we work on the software. I guess your point is that if either of us failed to establish a viable model, then it shouldn't necessarily imply the death of the software. Not only should it not imply the death of the software, I think if it even worries people about the death of the software, then there is something very unhealthy happening in the community. But beyond that I think it is important to keep in mind that though I'm currently employed as a creator of a tiddly-related code I do not believe that what I'm paid for is the code itself. The code is free, it is merely an expression of my expertise. It is the expertise and associated experience which is being paid for. When you, Eric, I or anyone else is paid to improve tiddly* it is because the payer needs it in either a faster or more direct way than the community can provide OR they are doing what they feel is just in the face of value they are getting from the community. Organizations like BT, in general, can use money more easily than they can perform the committed community participation that individuals provide in the form of use, bug reporting, documentation, community assistance and plain ol' writing code. In the end, whatever the currency, the value obtained is membership and participation. -- Chris Dent http://burningchrome.com/ [...] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To post to this group, send email to tiddlywiki@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tiddlywiki+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki?hl=en.
Re: [tw] Business Thought [was: Important Message from Eric]
Great post, thanks Chris. Your perspective on BT and Osmosoft is very valuable. >> At some point, Tiddly is going to live or die by whether or not the folks >> most committed to it find a long-term model for supporting the software and >> themselves. > > I completely disagree with this, and I think it is the prevelance of > this attitude in this thread which has contributed to me becoming > angry and finding it hard to find a way into the thread that is > clear and focused. The core of Mile's observation applies to both of us, though: we're trying to secure a long term model for supporting ourselves while we work on the software. I guess your point is that if either of us failed to establish a viable model, then it shouldn't necessarily imply the death of the software. > * When Jeremy was sucked up by the BT spaceship his availability > vaporized. Perhaps that will change now with his recent news. Yes, that's what it felt like to me, too. Doing a good job in an executive role in a big company has very, very little in common with running an open source project. I'm relishing recovering my independence. Many thanks, Jeremy -- Jeremy Ruston mailto:jer...@osmosoft.com http://www.tiddlywiki.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To post to this group, send email to tiddlywiki@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tiddlywiki+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki?hl=en.
Re: [tw] Business Thought [was: Important Message from Eric]
I've been waiting for an appropriate moment to join this collection of threads, and this paragraph below feels like it provides that moment. Before I get into that, though, I'd first like to say: It's a curious thing that Eric's expression of a need to ensure his livelihood somehow managed to devolve into a huge pile of complaining, demanding and introspection on what's wrong with the tiddly* community. At such times I would think it far better to celebrate and remind ourselves of the huge contributions that Eric has made over the years to the community. His work on creating, maintaining and documenting plugins is second to none and his efforts to ensure that the TiddlyWiki core keeps its promises have been outstanding, even if the face of sometimes different priorities from elsewhere. So, congratulations to Eric on his many years of work. I'm confident that as a community we will be able to work out ways to ensure that he can continue to contribute. I hope that's not at all controversial. The controversial part comes next, below: On Thu, 10 Nov 2011, Miles Fidelman wrote: At some point, Tiddly is going to live or die by whether or not the folks most committed to it find a long-term model for supporting the software and themselves. I completely disagree with this, and I think it is the prevelance of this attitude in this thread which has contributed to me becoming angry and finding it hard to find a way into the thread that is clear and focused. Tiddly lives and dies by the efforts of its community. Not by business, business interests, or even leaders. Tiddly is a thing in its own right with a community of participants who all have free and easy access to: * create documentation * contribute code * report bugs * demonstrate cool functionality In one of his earlier message Miles asks that Tiddly be more like, e.g., Linux. Back when I first started using Linux, I guess in about 1992, maybe 93, Linus and a few core devs were responsible for making patches and distributing tarballs. I installed Linux via SLS, a distribution packaged by someone who was not Linus nor one of those core devs. Later as the community grew someone got the bright idea to start the Linux Document Project (source of Howtos and the like). That wasn't a core dev either. A while later I was using Linux to run an ISP. We had features that we needed in the packages that ran our services. We mades patches to apache, qpopper, PAM, innd and contributed them back to the communities that surrounded them. My employer, the ISP, paid me to make those contributions back to the free (as in beer) software that made our business possible. TiddlyWiki is rather unique in its nature as a standalone piece of software. It is less easy to connect back to a community than say something like Apache or Linux. This does not, however, obviate the responsibility the community has to the health of TiddlyWiki itself and the TiddlyWiki community. I'm not sure when it happened (because I have not been observing the community for that long) but at some point the TiddlyWiki community stopped operating as one. Perhaps it was when Osmosoft was bought by BT. It sometimes seems like at that point people decided "oh there is money now, BT will take care of it." That's never been the case and never should have been the case. BT bought Osmosoft to understand open source operations yet bizarrely TiddlyWiki has become less and less operational as an open source project since the purchase. BT's engagement with TiddlyWiki ought to be much like the ISP (above) engaging with various software: It contributes back to the community those improvements which it finds valuable to itself. For example BT wanted a certain type of server-side so they paid me to make one (more on TiddlyWeb below). The maintenance of the community, though, should have been and needs to be (for the sake of just distribution of power) done by the community and the simple truth is this has not happened. There are presumably a few reasons for this. Some of it is that perceived "leaders" didn't step up in an effective fashion: * When Jeremy was sucked up by the BT spaceship his availability vaporized. Perhaps that will change now with his recent news. * Martin, who has been the inside Osmosoft lead of TiddlyWiki development, has not engaged the community with alacrity. * Eric, though his contributions are extremely valuable, insists on keeping them in a format that is not accessible to open source processes such as version control, forking, patching, issues tracking, etc. Nor has he, despite many invitations, become a proper contributor in the core code, using git etc. * Those of us with monetary relationships with Osmosoft (me, Ben, Jon, Colm, once upon a time FND, but no longer) have resposibilities which do not prioritize TiddlyWiki but instead business goals given to them by the people with the money and their own developing careers. * The (probably u
[tw] Business Thought [was: Important Message from Eric]
Alex Hough wrote (excerpts): GET OUR BUSINESS HEADS TOGETHER ? The point about governance is an interesting one that has come up before, its an interesting one given the context - of open source innovation. It would make a great study for a student of business (I have made some enquiries for myself) - the story should be written up. But I don't think governance should get in the way of some entrepreneurial thinking. What with Jeremy and Erik both looking for some ways to support both TiddlyWiki and themselves, it seems like this is the time to start thinking business model and organization very seriously. And in that regard, two possible models suggest themselves: 1. Zotero (Zotero.org) is a bibliographic tool for managing research citations. It runs as both a stand-alone browser plug-in, and in concert with a central server for sharing bibliographic records. It's as, or more, capable than commercial products and has a significant following among academic researchers. It strikes me as an effort of comparable scope to Tiddly. The project "lives" within the "Roy Rosenzweig Center for Historiy and New Media" in the Dept. of History and Art History, at George Mason University - with work funded by several foundation grants. I.e., a few techies are employed by a grant to develop and maintain the software, within a university department. It strikes me that Jeremy and Erik might have some serious discussion with UnaMesa about how to set up a similar arrangement under UnaMesa's 501(c)3 umbrella, and pursuing foundation and/or corporate sponsors for the work. 2. Talk to the folks behind CouchDB about how they ended up operating under the Apache Software Foundation, and how they support themselves and the continued development of CouchDB. At some point, Tiddly is going to live or die by whether or not the folks most committed to it find a long-term model for supporting the software and themselves. (Just one man's opinion.) Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To post to this group, send email to tiddlywiki@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tiddlywiki+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki?hl=en.
