[Zope-dev] Open Letter to zope-dev

Paul Everitt paul@zope.com
Fri, 30 Nov 2001 08:40:31 -0500


seb bacon wrote:
 > If we think we're a community, then we should all be responsible for
 > building on it.  I think we should have a conversation about what
 > makes a community work, and then come up with some positive
 > suggestions about improving the community *ourselves*.  ZC will
 > follow, for sure.

Yep.  If not, I say we string 'em up. :^)

 > There must be members of various OSS communities knocking around
 > here. Python, XML things, Apache Foundation, GNOME.  What are
 > peoples' experiences?  Which are the best?  Why?

I think KDE is a great example of a community that has mastered the
paradox of being 100% non-hierarchical (from a corporate involvement
perspective), while retaining the clean design you (sometimes) get from
top-down organizations.

 > I'm not sure about the ideal community, but here's some practical
 > ideas to start off with.
 >
 > 1) Just because no-one can ever agree about splitting up the mailing
 > lists, what's to stop somebody setting one up unilaterally? Perhaps
 > the people who care strongly about this should just set up an egroup?
 > I'm sure ZC would link to it from zope.org.  Come on somebody, set
 > up a forum at zope-newbies@yahoogroups.com, today, right now, and
 > continue the discussion there.

There's been an effort to come up with a newsgroup gateway that
organizes the mailing lists.  We've provided some input on it, but it's
almost completely a "from the community" kind of thing.

I'll let those people reveal themselves, rather than outting them.

 > 2) How about the responsiveness of ZC?  Granted, it could be much
 > better, but they're *trying*.  Let's help them with suggestions.
 > Look

One suggestion: we can't be 100% up-to-date on the whole Zope world.
Help us focus on the places where we can help people that help people.

For instance, I'm trying to be a much better citizen of EuroZope.  It's
a place where I can respond to a few people that are then going to
influence a bunch more people.  In this respect, I need to be in the
institution-building mode, rather than signing up for specific things
(like, produce the ZWN).

 > at the fishbowl. It's an open process, but doesn't get contributed to
 > that much.  What are the problems with it?  How can we improve it?
 > I think it should be linked from zope.org more prominently, for a
 > start.  I think the wiki format puts people off because they're not
 > familiar with it.  How about a familiar-looking discussion board on
 > each proposal, too?

This is a good line of discussion.

 > 3) Another thing mentioned regularly: the zope.org community site is
 > pretty bad. I think, just as the respository is beginning to open up,
 > so should construction of zope.org.  There should be a mailing list,
 > some members of the community should be appointed to some kind of
 > committee, and ZC should always have some representation on it.
 > But it should be led by the people for whom it exists in the first
 > place, IMO. Collectively, we have a vast array of talented designers,
 > programmers, information architects, etc, at our disposal.  Will ZC
 > countenance this proposal? If not, should we be working on our own
 > community site?

I hereby decree that ZC will countenance this proposal.  There's only
one caveat.

I don't want to replace one group of people with a busy agenda with
another group of people with a busy agenda.  We need a small group of
people that are willing to make a long-term commitment to
responsibility.  These people can then tap into others that can commit
on an as-needed basis.

Let's start on this today.  Here's a chance, a _golden_ chance, to show
that the community can grow beyond ZC and take over something
challenging.  Go subscribe to zope-web and let's get the discussion
started on how to bring the community into zope.org.

 > These may be crap ideas, I don't know; but I think we *can* do
 > something about these issues, collectively.  We shouldn't just ask ZC
 > to do something about it.  Carpe diem and all that.

Right.  If it's all complaints and nobody is willing to be _personally
accountable_ to do a better job than ZC, then it will be a long time
before we see 10x growth.

On the other hand, if the community is actually the big fish and ZC is 
the little fish, and if the next month shows success on a couple of 
efforts, then Andrew's note will be looked back on as the catalyst that 
led to 10x.

--Paul