On Wed, Jul 8, 2015 at 8:41 PM, pavithran <pavithra...@gmail.com> wrote: > Here are some points about community problems > a. Factionalism > b. Cabalism (or simply Cabals) > As have been part of both parts do understand that both factions and > cabals start with good intentions but sometimes later warp beyond > recognition. > Next he goes on to say > > c. No communication, Mis-communication > d. Fragmented content with contradictory messages. > The above two I have also seen time and again as a ‘feature’ of the > Indian FOSS community at large where most communities in India don’t > really communicate to other FOSS communities or world at large or are > pretty bad at things.
At the time this post was originally circulated on a list I had reached out to the author with a request to provide a set of examples which illustrate the problems he perceives. The pair of instances cited in the post [(a) no calendaring and (b) not enough developer interest in defect reports] do not seem to add up to the specific problems that are being drawn. In fact, it is egregious to pass off an anecdote_of_one as a general perception. The author has been a participant in various communities over a period of time. And is well aware that the question of "calendar for FOSS events" comes up in a cyclical manner. However, it is also somewhat painfully obvious that no one has taken the time to publish a set of requirements such a calendar/system would have. That single act (of 'product management') would have provided the jump-off point for college students or, similar (recall that PLUG generally organizes the monthly meetings at SICSR) to consider a prototype implementation. Having said that, the author also chooses to ignore that across Pune and other cities, the general purpose (user) groups viz. LUGs and like are being supplanted by niche/specialized meetups. One can see this trend in the increasing number of groups being lit up on services like meetup.com. An oft quoted statement around the FOSS model of software development is "scratch your own itch". I am somewhat bewildered that the author has chosen to not consider putting the absence of a calendar in that context and attempted to devise an understanding of what it means in terms of a "maker approach". Without specific example of "cabals", it would be somewhat difficult to paint an entire generation/group of participants to be prolific members of secret coteries. To the last point of "no communication" I would put forward that this is an orthogonal comprehension of community growth and the model around community formation. Communities do not talk with communities, people do. And across India there are enough examples of individuals (participants and contributors) who work within the upstreams of their projects, laterally across projects of their own interest and within their own community around the geographical location. This discussion can be of material interest only if there is enough specific examples discussed (with names redacted, if required) and thereafter conclusions drawn. -- sankarshan mukhopadhyay <https://about.me/sankarshan.mukhopadhyay> _______________________________________________ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc ILUGC Mailing List Guidelines: http://ilugc.in/mailinglist-guidelines
