Traditionally, open source software has relied primarily on asynchronous communication. While there are probably quite a few synchronous conversations on irc, most project discussions and decisions will happen on asynchronous channels like mailing lists, bug tracking tools and blogs. I think there’s another reason for this. Synchronous communication is difficult for an open source project. For […]
A recent conversation on a Mozilla mailing list about whether IRC channels should be archived or not shows what a commitment it is to remain open. It’s hard work and not always comfortable to work completely in the open. Most of us in open source are used to “working in the open”. Everything we send
Working in the open is hard Read More »
Kids on Computers is planning a trip to the Huajuapan de Leon, Mexico area in June. If you can, please join us! If you can’t, please consider donating to help the labs we’ll be working on. Most of us will be going down for a week or so. There are travel stipends available for those
Use your vacation to do good in exotic locations Read More »
I read an awesome book last month, Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal by Connor Grennan that made me realize that in addition to saving the world and solving big problems that affect millions of people, we also need to make sure everyone has a champion. Little Princes is about this
You have to take care of the individuals as well as the process Read More »
The Mozilla Summit is coming! On June 15th,  50 Mozillians got together for a planning session and I discovered just how much Mozillians focus on getting great things done! We met to help shape the Mozilla Summit (a 2,000 person conference happening later this year) in a way that would move Mozilla forward. We spent the first day talking
Mozilla is a community of do-ers! Read More »
Many of us working on free and open source software have strong values and we want to make the world a better place. I’m comfortable predicting that the rate of vegetarians, recyclers, hybrid vehicle owners and just general environmentally conscious people is higher than average in free and open source software projects. We want to
Should you only do business with those that share your values? Read More »
The number of long form blog post have been declining for years. Most speculate that it’s because most of us spend more time microblogging on Twitter and Facebook. Certainly, when I started blogging in 2004, I blogged a lot of things that I would only tweet now. In November 2010, Jeff Bercovici wrote on Forbes:
“Where there is no competition, there is no market. This is why start-ups who “have no competition” have trouble engaging partners and making sales.” – Geoffrey Moore, Escape Velocity Open source projects often shy away from competition. They value collaboration and leveraging existing solutions. But competition is good for more than making you run faster.
Your competition helps explain who you are Read More »
We all have blog posts we haven’t written. Boris Mann wrote about why he hasn’t posted some. Here are the top 7 reasons I haven’t published some of the blog posts I’ve written. Half baked. My idea was half baked. A lot of times I find myself blogging about things I’m still trying to work
The 7 reasons I didn’t post it Read More »
I recently listened to a talk by Michael Lopp about how to be a great manager. During his talk, he stressed the importance of hallway conversations. Hallway conversations are informal conversations about projects, goals and status. As Shez says, they are great for bouncing ideas off people you might not normally interact with and just
How to have hallway conversations when you can’t see the hallway Read More »