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

Google Tech Talks
January 25, 2007

ABSTRACT

Every open source project runs into people who are selfish, uncooperative, and disrespectful. These people can silently poison the atmosphere of a happy developer community. Come learn how to identify these people and peacefully de-fuse them before they derail your project. Told through a series of (often amusing) real-life anecdotes and experiences. Credits: Speaker:Ben Collins-Sussman, Speaker:Brian Fitzpatrick

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• subversion
• open
• source
• google
• tech
• talks

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[felipealvarez1982]

was this presentation made on OOo?

[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

[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.