Tag Archives: open source

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not naming you fools. The name “Ship of Fools” comes from agile organisational sculpting, and we have named it such to lighten up, and make it easier to try some of the “other” roles, or try out something crazy in the role we are in. I am using WhyThisFork as my guide, and welcome more and other perspectives. Please check my statements and assumptions below? It’s all appearances? What it seems?

Boatswain – Quality

The quality of Twiki is amazing. It still is as far as I know. No doubt so is FosWiki as a branch. I set up and used a Twiki in 2001 for InterRaven. It was a tank. But not mature yet. Now it’s years later: Twiki became “New, New, New” yet “Old enough” to attract VC’s or to self-capitalise and commercialise. And it did. In May 2007 TWiki.net was established for the express purpose of commercialising TWiki. The community response is generally positive. People on board have faith in the outcome of this new journey based on previous journeys with this cap’n having been successful. Trust levels are still high. And the ally block attracted is a venture capitalist group. Who that is and what the deal is, I don’t know. I haven’t seen the business planning and I prefer not to interpret “nothing”. One of the things I already have a T-shirt for. Several.

Lookout in Crow’s nest – Self and World concepts

I often liken open source communities to Pirate ships. The captain is chosen by consensus or majority vote, and he (or she) can be replaced by another if the journeys do not deliver enough loot (results, like enjoying ourselves). Likely oligarchies emerge. In August of 2007, there’s a problem. Apparently not all Pirates voted.

… some disagreements followed due to the summit not having a formal mandate to make decisions in camera that affected the absent community.

Cap’n – Forward feedback loop

A captain isn’t necessarily a person. “Captain” is a function. The forward feedback loop. Navigation, risk management, … Twiki was originally Peter’s child? Spiritual father so to speak. And many people have put in hours and energy and made it their own. This function requires being able to deal congruently with spirited discussion from all functions and pirates aboard the ship, and if need be, conflict. I would say the January, February 2008 period when conflicts first arose was key and the following an excellent response:

Any decision on the governance model was postponed to the third summit (held in Berlin). Peter Thoeny was to make a proposal on twiki.org, so community members could discuss it in public.

Sailmaker – Reward system

This is the heart of the matter. Monies are often mentioned, but under water the need for and resistance to acceptance, belonging, conforming, fitting in, being loved and liked, all play a part here for many involved.

Peter Thoeny wrote a proposal for a new TWiki governance model. In short:

1. Peter Thoeny is a Self Appointed “Benevolent Dictator for Life” (BDFL) — spiritual leader of the TWiki project. The BDFL appoints members of the Technical Board.
2. The TWiki name and brand, as well as the twiki.org domain name, are the property of the project founder Peter Thoeny; he has sole discretion in decisions related to these matters.

This proposal met considerable opposition from the community. It seemed to go against some already established and more democratic decision structures. The role of BDFL met some strong resistance, although some members acknowledged the need for leadership.

Cabin boy – Sales

This is where blaming often plays a role. Blaming of self, life, others, the system, and even God, Bananas and Flying Spaghetti Monsters can be called to come into the game.

As RafaelAlvarez writes: The community wanted to make explicit the permissions that were implicit before, that is, that the community can use the TWiki ™ brand the way it has been done before without having to pay or relicence TWIKI.NET. This means that any community member could make a TWiki(tm) pakage (taking the core, add some plugins and a nice installer on top) and call it TWiki ™. This means that I could have a company named “Global TWiki Consulting Services” that provides TWiki related services, and that siltes like twikirules.org, twikigurus.org and such can spawn. Today, for all that you need a written permission from the trademark holder, and if there is even the sligthes disagreement between you and him, you run the risk to get sued (a site called twikisucks.org could not exists, for example). In the same vein, a consulting company that is seen as a heavy competitor to TWIKI.NET is not likely to get the permission to have TWiki ™ in its name. Alternative governance proposals were then made. The community agreed that a final agreement on the matter would be finalised at the TWiki Community Summit in September.

First Mate – negative feedback loop

The place of confidence if all went well, and of doubt if not. If in doubt, depending on what’s happening “inside” we humans can produce non-confrontational and/or tuned out responses, procrastination and/or emotional freezes, code white victim syndrome symptoms, or a total panic response.

Just before the TWiki Community Summit September 2008 in Berlin, the community learned that Peter Thoeny was not willing to discuss the role of BDFL or the TWiki brand. Moreover, Peter would not be able to join the summit; instead, Tom Barton would be attending.

Constable – Operations

We’re getting to the crunch. Twiki has quality. Version control. A healthy Boatswain to support and drive the Constable. The weapons were looked after, and the ammunition was kept dry.

At the summit, the attending TWiki community members (present physcially and by conference call) expressed the following:

• The BDFL position is not needed or appropriate for the community. The majority position was that this would not be an acceptable element of governance.
• The participants expressed very strong reservations about TWIKI.NET’s control of the TWiki brand whose value, the participants felt, is primarily based on the volunteer contributions of many individuals.

At the end of the day, the group summarized its position on these questions as follows:

1. The license on the brand name “TWiki” should be a free (as in free beer and free speech) Public License given to the entire community, without having to sign an agreement.
2. Peter Thoeny is considered the Chief Evangelist, but he will not have veto right, nor will he have the right to overturn community decisions.

If TWIKI.NET did not agree with this position, then the community would create a fork.

Swabbies – Development

And there you have it. Mutiny. Revolution. A fork to FosWiki. It is clear to me from the above, the community did see other points of view. Did not lack mental authority and responsibility. The cap’n wasn’t killed, or made to walk the plank. He could stay on, but the crew wanted a more democratic structure in response to an autocratic projection by the cap’n, even if it was originally intended as a joke (with a VC group behind it, it becomes much less funny).

Organisational development warnings

FosWiki

The larger your crew, the harder it becomes to make difficult decisions in a democratic structure. And if not all crew members are experienced and educated players, that can become a major problem and the ship goes nowhere and everywhere fast. It simply dissolves as the experienced players walk off while faster ships start feeding on what’s left. But if you have a critical mass of experienced players, and you intend to self-capitalise, or not commercialise at all, the ship and its crew has no problem going nowhere and everywhere. Likely we get to see unexplored territory and unexpected treasure. The seas and oceans are big enough … just mind the reefs.

TWiki

Even if you are not intending and projecting autocracies, your actions can be interpreted as such by crew members. And autocracy may make a ship fast for a while, but in the long run, such crews tend to fall apart because too many members build up resentment from each occasion a decision wasn’t in their best interest, or was even to their disadvantage. We’ve been there, done that, and that’s why open source is such a success. Cheers to finding other, new mistakes. And if on top of that the projected autocracy displays signs that can be interpreted as corruption, an increasing number of people will feel the autocrat is getting that at their expense, and will start to walk way or revolt or start a mutiny. And all of that can also happen while you intend an oligarchy.

My conclusion

I was about to install one or two wiki’s for communities. In both cases I work closely together with users. For one, the person I could ask is already contaminated by the illusionary pushes and pulls of this revolution. The other is still clean. I will ask him to pick Twiki or FosWiki based on their descriptions for his purpose. Which software speaks to my customers? Code is poetry, and the software alive. Actually, it had a child? The real Treasure Chest for me is making my customers happy, whether they are paying customers or not. I always do my best. We all do. And we’re all just humans. We just need to see it like that for both self and others, and everything changes. While commercial is not a dirty word in my book (I do like to be able to pay my bills, and have a vacation now and then), I want to guard it with some excellent professional ethics.

Feedback is very welcome …