How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People (And...

[rosinagrosso1122]

nice video.. if you have a better solution to a problem why to follow something else. As for disrespectful, you can't demand to respect someone, he has to earn it.

[dvdotsenko]

1. There is no "Your" in "Open source project"

2. Scope is important on a milestone level or "small" project level. On a project-level what's important is community (spending quality time with people, cherishing that time as well-spent etc) not product and not "goal."

3. Present shift away SVN = clear example of attention, focus causing the community to miss the next turn in the world of software.

Parts are useful, but think twice before quoting this talk. It's based on false premises.

[pyrotechnick]

Thumbs up if you use git, mercurial, bazaar, darcs or monotone

[felipealvarez1982]

was this presentation made on OOo?

[amirtaaki]

No wonder Subversion is terrible software. Now I know.

[nobodyatlocalhost]

"A nice thing about open source projects is that you can always do a fork."

Recall around 03:17 that the user community's "Attention and Focus...are your scarcest resources" and that "you must protect them."

By forking the project, you'll also be forking the user community's attention and focus, which the speakers say would kill the project. Politics of ideology definitely play out in open source projects; Linus Torvalds and colleagues are known to be hypercontrolling over kernel development.

[humanpixel]

If either of these guys were in my community, I would boot them just because they annoy me. Subversion took 4 years to release a version 1? That's not a successful, attentive and focused community. Calling people poisonous to begin with is extremely negative and unnecessary.

[Shaddow741]

@humanpixel serious geeks like these guys are intimidated when a user questions them about their project, or when a true coder asks them questions they can't answer. They don't like people trying to push in on their territory/little world (where they've basically made a juvenille declaration saying they're god & there's no need to question them)

so, these guys take an hour telling you, you should let your team produce mediocre & punish all free thinkers who make suggestions in your community...

[imran1008]

This presentation is completely worthless and unnecessary if you're using a distributed repository such as git. Why have a small group people take responsibility of trusting all volunteers instead of developing a network of trust that occurs more naturally.

[lichuan80]

A good video with some bad comparison with enterprise developers.

[knight4linux]

This is a wonderful video! Thank you for this. I plan on showing this to key developers in my projects community and implement a lot of these ideas. Thanks again.

[walter0bz]

isnt the point of open source that differing opinions can just branch...

[jopanel]

Dont have one person do one big module on your application. He might get hit by a bus. lol

[Marxmann1984]

The bald guy seems like a total cut-throat douche bag. These people with jobs don't have time to follow the log message specifications because they're working on something that they probably have no interest in whatsoever. OTOH, the unpaid volunteers, which probably have very little to do outside the project, are doing something they like doing so they do so with no complaints. It's really nice of them to stultify paid developers when they really have no idea about their current workload.

[lichuan80]

Exactly this is bad comparison for those who commit for a living, and that is time pressure and community politics.

[AzoreanProud]

Got to love Anarchy ^^

[TheIR2]

Open Source Projects=Googletechtalk=54 MINUTES=Google lecture

Splitting a Movie can make money

But not Some Lecture So that's why this Video related to lecture etc have less limits on how long the video run.

Google talking to Google people.

Are you Google People.?

[otharennaur]

O_O WTF 54 MINUTES???? ....

Ah.... google channel... that explains all...

[nowaydudewtf]

Even if it wasn't, Google owns YouTube so they can remove any and all restrictions.

[otharennaur]

Well, last week I saw Kraftwerk's live video Minimum Maximum here in youtube, it's splitted in two parts aroun 1 hour each, it's a reeeeeal good video, i've been listening to it for days at my work =D, so i see google channel is not the only one with neverending videos =) watch the kraftwerk's concert, you won't regret

[xanatose]

A nice thing about open source projects is that you can always do a fork.

[xanatose]

If a task is complex. Less people know how to do it and there are less ways of doing it. Thus the decisions take less time.

If the task is simple. More people know how to do it, and there are more ways of doing it. Since more people understand and each has its preferences, it takes more time.

BTW: What they call "poisonous people", are also called critical thinkers or independent thinkers.

[rspawn]

"What they call "poisonous people", are also called critical thinkers or independent thinkers."

They define "poisonous people" as people who are selfish, uncooperative, and disrespectful.

It is entirely possible to be an independent thinker without being selfish, uncooperative, and disrespectful.

In those cases where an independent thinker is poisonous, the project either makes the best of it or cuts its losses - in fact the video cites a few examples of that.

[ervisgr]

I think it's nothing wrong being selfish, uncooperative and disrespectful. Sometimes being selfish makes you better. if you see a "smarter" guy, because you're selfish you want to be better than he is(He did it, i'll do it better.)Uncooperative, if you have a better solution to a problem why to follow something else. As for disrespectful, you can't demand to respect someone, he has to earn it.We should focus on development of open source projects. Freedom and development should be the only goal

[david0aloha]

@ervisgr

Yeah, good luck with getting along with others. If your goal is to produce open-source ideas as a community, you've already decided that productivity and multiple inputs are part of the picture.

Look at it from the perspective of leading a community or even from a strictly goal-oriented perspective. If you want to produce something effectively without getting people at each others throats then learn to work with others or DIY. It's inefficient to NOT have cooperation in a team.

[Gerrrry]

Man I hate this talk, it's completely counter productive. It's about continuing on down the same path no matter what, even if you're completely wrong. What they call poisonous people, I call independent thinkers. If you discourage distention then you will never learn anything new.

[rspawn]

"It's about continuing on down the same path no matter what, even if you're completely wrong."

Except that many open source projects that are managed this way, do have a working product to show for it.

And if you think you know better, fork it.

[Gerrrry]

> Except that many open source projects that are managed this way, do have a working product to show for it.

I didn't say anything about it breaking projects.

> And if you think you know better, fork it.

I don't believe they released their talk as open source. I couldn't care less what they do with their own projects (I'm moving away from svn as my tool of choice), my problem was with what they are instructing other products to do.

[erikadaraazz]

OMG! 54MINS?....TELL ME HOW. LOL

[doud212]

simply because it is google and they own youtube...

[PWOPLW]

Some older accounts can post long videos too, but yeah, I could see Google pulling some strings.

[reYKCuf]

Remember the men of the USS Liberty.

[54spiritedwill54]

Very interesting.

[zohar5150]

VIRTUAL HIPPY COMMUNE

[zohar5150]

HAIKU

[leekieattacks]

There is nothing wrong with writing your name on the top of something you coded. In fact, not allowing someone to do that is wrong and unfair.

[dagvl]

There's not anything wrong with a community standard that prohibits names in the file, and there isn't anything wrong with a community that allows it. It's just two different choices which are both legitimate.

[Joorin4711]

dagvl put it well in his reply but there is more to it than different community standards. The goal is to, by cooperation, write the best code solving the problem that the project is oriented to solving. By *not* letting people put their names in the code, things can move faster, just as the talkers say, since everyone can get into it without having to think about anything else than writing good code.

And you'll get your name in there too. That's what you use the version control system for.

[digestedsheepstomach]

Did you not listen? Watch 18-20 again. There are many places where you get credit for your work.

[leekieattacks]

"The goal is to, by cooperation, write the best code solving the problem that the project is oriented to solving."

So just because someone put their name in their contribution to the project you discard it? Sounds to me like circular logic, you could easily implement some license that developers need to adhere to instead.

[asteron]

The audience member in the front spent 20 mins picking at his nails. Otherwise very insightful.

[Argonaut22j]

yeah that guy is annoying

[spidfire]

yeah verry usefull :) thx for posting

[slpk]

very interesting

[xiambax]

This is stupid, Arg.

No really, just kidding.

Made some very valid points.

And was very insightful.

[BarrykeNL]

Very interesting. Thanks Ben & Brian!

[Blavanyas2]

ya its very useful

[devbandi]

Many recognizable stuff.