[Ilugc] Are Indian FOSS communities closed-source ?
- From: sankarshan.mukhopadhyay@xxxxxxxxx (Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay)
- Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2015 14:57:58 +0530
On Wed, Jul 8, 2015 at 8:41 PM, pavithran <pavithran.s at 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>
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