content/editorial/communityaction.html - openoffice-org - Git at Google

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 <p>
 <h2><font color="#cc6600" face="Courier New, Courier, mono" size="+2">Editor's Column</font></h2>
 <p>23 January 2001</p>
 <p><a href="//lspintro.html">-Louis Suarez-Potts</a></p>

 <p><b>Community Action</b></p>
 <p>A week ago, I had promised that I would embark this week on an examination
   of other open-source projects, beginning with Apple's <a href="http://www.publicsource.apple.com//projects/darwin/">Darwin
   project</a> (the core of Mac OS X). But the events of the last week have forced
   me to postpone that examination. </p>
 <p>No, I do not refer to George Bush's inauguration or to the demonstrations protesting
   that event. Rather, I refer to what is closer to home: The very lively discussions
   over the future functionality of OpenOffice.org that have animated the project's
   &quot;discuss&quot; mailing list. In particular, I mean the thread &quot;Say
   it isn't so,&quot; in which an enormous number of respondents, both technically
   oriented and not, have weighed in with their arguments regarding OpenOffice.org's
   incorporation of e-mail and calendering functionality.</p>
 <p>The issue is of course important; however, I want in this column to focus less
   on the good or bad of including such functionality than on the process by which
   the OpenOffice.org community articulates its desires and interests (the thread
   continues). That process, first, is definitively <i>civil</i>. There are no
   flames; only a rational (and passionate) discussion of the pros and cons. Last
   week, I <a href="ec16Jan01.html">suggested</a> that
   an open-source community exists in dialectic relation with the governing body
   (or whatever body articulates the rules and road maps). But the nature of a
   dialectic is that it is not static: power shifts incessantly, the goals of any
   open-source community never purely rest with the governing body but can always
   be contested by an active community.</p>
 <p>However, the OpenOffice.org community is not quite in the same situation as,
   say, <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla.org</a>, on which I briefly touched
   last week. Rather, as Brian Behlendorf (co-founder of Apache) wrote in response
   to a message, &quot;there are no 'OpenOffice[.org] Foundation board members'
   yet; Sun (in conjunction with others) is still working to determine the best
   way to create a legal entity around OpenOffice.org that answers to the community.&quot;
   This is not to say that there is no guidance or planning. There is: Sun and
   CollabNet (who hosts the site) continue to devote an extraordinary amount of
   time and energy to guiding the community. It is just that there is so far no
   <i>formal</i> governing body. </p>
 <p>Certainly, such a governing body will be necessary, if one of its functions
   is to ensure the community holds to agreed-upon goals. But, from the evidence,
   the OpenOffice.org community has been working in a way that demonstrates that
   it is perfectly able to establish priorities and values on its own.</p>
 <p>For what the &quot;Say it isn't so&quot; thread reveals is a community that
   is powerfully engaged; not just working in passive isolation on abstruse code
   but very concerned with and interested in how the user will actually benefit
   from what they are doing. And it also shows that the developers are by no means
   blind to the commercial and real-world elements of the projects they work on.
   In fact, an acute recognition of the marketability of the software animates
   the discussion and complements the equal recognition that the project will only
   succeed if people actually <i>use</i> the products derived from OpenOffice.org.</p>
 <p>I hesitate to relate the thread messages in full. Not only are there many,
   but each is an intervention in a debate and was not written with the consciousness
   that it might be featured here. However, for those interested, the URL for the
   current &quot;discuss&quot; mail list is: <a href="//www-discuss/current/">//www-discuss/current/.</a></p>
 <p>&nbsp;</p>
 <h4>Previous columns</h4>
 <p>3 January 2001 <i><a href="SunsOpenDoor.html">Sun's
   open door</a></i></p>
 <p>9 January 2001 <i><a href="thebuild.html">The 613
   build:&nbsp; problems and opportunities</a></i></p>
 <p>16 January 2001 <i><a href="ec16Jan01.html">Quo
   Vadis OpenOffice.org?</a></i></p>
 <p>
 <p>E-mail:<a href="mailto:louis at collab.net"> louis at collab.net*</a></p>
 <p>*By spelling out the mail address, I'm hoping to defeat spam crawlers.</p>


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	<p>
	<h2><font color="#cc6600" face="Courier New, Courier, mono" size="+2">Editor's Column</font></h2>
	<p>23 January 2001</p>
	<p><a href="//lspintro.html">-Louis Suarez-Potts</a></p>

	<p><b>Community Action</b></p>
	<p>A week ago, I had promised that I would embark this week on an examination
	of other open-source projects, beginning with Apple's <a href="http://www.publicsource.apple.com//projects/darwin/">Darwin
	project</a> (the core of Mac OS X). But the events of the last week have forced
	me to postpone that examination. </p>
	<p>No, I do not refer to George Bush's inauguration or to the demonstrations protesting
	that event. Rather, I refer to what is closer to home: The very lively discussions
	over the future functionality of OpenOffice.org that have animated the project's
	"discuss" mailing list. In particular, I mean the thread "Say
	it isn't so," in which an enormous number of respondents, both technically
	oriented and not, have weighed in with their arguments regarding OpenOffice.org's
	incorporation of e-mail and calendering functionality.</p>
	<p>The issue is of course important; however, I want in this column to focus less
	on the good or bad of including such functionality than on the process by which
	the OpenOffice.org community articulates its desires and interests (the thread
	continues). That process, first, is definitively <i>civil</i>. There are no
	flames; only a rational (and passionate) discussion of the pros and cons. Last
	week, I <a href="ec16Jan01.html">suggested</a> that
	an open-source community exists in dialectic relation with the governing body
	(or whatever body articulates the rules and road maps). But the nature of a
	dialectic is that it is not static: power shifts incessantly, the goals of any
	open-source community never purely rest with the governing body but can always
	be contested by an active community.</p>
	<p>However, the OpenOffice.org community is not quite in the same situation as,
	say, <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla.org</a>, on which I briefly touched
	last week. Rather, as Brian Behlendorf (co-founder of Apache) wrote in response
	to a message, "there are no 'OpenOffice[.org] Foundation board members'
	yet; Sun (in conjunction with others) is still working to determine the best
	way to create a legal entity around OpenOffice.org that answers to the community."
	This is not to say that there is no guidance or planning. There is: Sun and
	CollabNet (who hosts the site) continue to devote an extraordinary amount of
	time and energy to guiding the community. It is just that there is so far no
	<i>formal</i> governing body. </p>
	<p>Certainly, such a governing body will be necessary, if one of its functions
	is to ensure the community holds to agreed-upon goals. But, from the evidence,
	the OpenOffice.org community has been working in a way that demonstrates that
	it is perfectly able to establish priorities and values on its own.</p>
	<p>For what the "Say it isn't so" thread reveals is a community that
	is powerfully engaged; not just working in passive isolation on abstruse code
	but very concerned with and interested in how the user will actually benefit
	from what they are doing. And it also shows that the developers are by no means
	blind to the commercial and real-world elements of the projects they work on.
	In fact, an acute recognition of the marketability of the software animates
	the discussion and complements the equal recognition that the project will only
	succeed if people actually <i>use</i> the products derived from OpenOffice.org.</p>
	<p>I hesitate to relate the thread messages in full. Not only are there many,
	but each is an intervention in a debate and was not written with the consciousness
	that it might be featured here. However, for those interested, the URL for the
	current "discuss" mail list is: <a href="//www-discuss/current/">//www-discuss/current/.</a></p>
	<p> </p>
	<h4>Previous columns</h4>
	<p>3 January 2001 <i><a href="SunsOpenDoor.html">Sun's
	open door</a></i></p>
	<p>9 January 2001 <i><a href="thebuild.html">The 613
	build:  problems and opportunities</a></i></p>
	<p>16 January 2001 <i><a href="ec16Jan01.html">Quo
	Vadis OpenOffice.org?</a></i></p>
	<p>
	<p>E-mail:<a href="mailto:louis at collab.net"> louis at collab.net*</a></p>
	<p>*By spelling out the mail address, I'm hoping to defeat spam crawlers.</p>


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