March 2006
Thursday 30 March 2006
- The 2nd National Summit for CWNs - The Second National Summit for Community Wireless Networks will be held this weekend in St. Charles, Missouri and I'll be speaking during the Open Source Wireless session. If you're suitably interested and in the area over the weekend, check it out!... (22:42)
Sunday 26 March 2006
- ISO The Mozilla Project's Identity - At the Firefox Summit in December 2005 during the Mozilla Project Dynamics talk, Mitchell posed the question of what concerns we had as changes occurred within the Mozilla ecosystem. The concern I mentioned was that as the changes happened, we may forget who we were. It was a concern of an identity crisis. But as I vocalized my concern, I realized (and spoke) that I wasn't sure the community was even conscious of its own identity. Those present nodded in agreement. How could this problem come about? I don't believe it's the result of anyone's miscalculation. It likely stems from an informal group dynamic. The project is open source. One can get at the code without signing documents, or agreeing to the project's mission. The project is what people make of it. When people become a part of the community, prove themselves, and move into positions of responsibility throughout the project, no one's required to state an oath to selected principles. The "shared knowledge" in our community is a common phenomenon among projects of all sizes. But as we've grown from small to large, shared knowledge that's not written down has become a detriment. These are a few things that lead to a big problem: No one knows why the other is here. So what unites us? Are we united by a cool app? By many cool apps or the prospect of a cool app? Are we united by purpose of freedom? By community? Are we here for what could come? Is the process part of the reward? Or do we exist in a vacuum of values, where utility derived from the code is irrelevant to our communal interactions? We are a bohemian collective of tech rebels and stalwarts. Sometimes we are our own producers and our own consumers. We are for our users. We are for open source projects. We are strong and unsure. Weak and wise. We provide a means for others' expression (such as Flickr, IBM, and Google on the web and with email). We can be method without soul, or soul without expression. Can we simply be what we choose to be? What do you think Mozilla is all about? I welcome you to offer your views for what you see as the Mozilla project's identity in comments below.... (17:46 | 4 Comments)