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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Jody,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Thank you for all of your comments. They
were insightful. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>I should point out that I don’t get really
bothered by the private contacts, which aren’t that frequent, and was more
interested in finding a way to get lurkers more involved. It seems this is more
challenging than I first realized.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><strong><b><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Landon</span></font></b></strong><font
color=navy><span style='color:navy'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268</span></font><font
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658</span></font><font
color=navy><span style='color:navy'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'> </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'> discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org] <b><span style='font-weight:bold'>On
Behalf Of </span></b>Jody Garnett<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Tuesday, August 25, 2009
6:31 AM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> <st1:PersonName w:st="on">OSGeo
Discussions</st1:PersonName><br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open
Source Lurkers</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Evening Landon:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>As you have gathered from the responses thus far that lurkers are
actually the larger part of the user community - and do not really represent an
opportunity to acquire new developers for your project.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>The point is that they are part of the user community; and are probably
not in a position or motivation to become part of the development community.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Some tips for involving them:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>- make sure project wiki; issue tracker etc is very open to input<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>What to do when they email you directly:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>- This is a hard one; they are asking for free support; and are too shy
or unable to go to the public email list<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>- I answer (or point out docs) and remind them that LISAsoft offers
commercial support; and that free support from fellow users is available on the
email lists<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>- If they have an issue I may turn their issue into an item on the bug
tracker; and invite them to add comments with more details. I find it easier to
show how to make a good bug report (but other developers have helpful
links about how to make a bug report).<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>What happens next is kind of up to the reaction...<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>If they launch into the issue tracker; or user list; and start
interacting with community members:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>- if it is a documentation or api question I will write a wiki page and
ask them to review.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>- If it is a bug - It is time to start talking about patches; creating
them; attaching them to the bug tracker; and so on.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>- The first time I will facilitate this process; often using IRC or
something<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>- Chances are if they have started down this road they are going to
have a successful open source experience and after a few months (6 months to a
year) it is time to start talking to them about commit access and taking a
larger role. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>If they persist in contacting me directly:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>- If they are contacting me by my work email address - I usually
feel comfortable phoning and/or asking talking to their boss about commercial
support options at this stage :-)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>- If they persist in contacting me directly; I will start to CC my
responses to the public email list (I change my note about commercial support
to a link to all the organizations offering commercial support as it is not
great to advertise). There is the risk of of course deeply offending
someone and/or getting them in trouble - this is balanced by the risk of being
taken advantage of. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>- Chances are If they start down this road I will hook them up with one
of the companies supporting GeoTools (on a good day it will be a company I work
for)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>What is fascinating to me is how well some of the distributed version
control technologies are geared towards allowing groups to have a shadow copy
of a project. Maybe I should reword that as an "internal" version of
a project; it is actually a really good practice; offering a balance
between "Sticking behind on a stable version" vs the risk of
"using the latest". It really provides a programming team to control
the software they are getting from the community at a different pace then the
release cycle; it is also really good in that these teams can live and breath
patches - and can hire you to fix problems.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>What is more difficult is explaining about how LGPL means that the work
they do internally needs to come out :-) But that is a topic for another day
..<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Cheers,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Jody<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>On 22/08/2009, at 4:55 AM, <st1:PersonName w:st="on">Landon Blake</st1:PersonName>
wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>I would like to get some comments on a
phenomenon I have discovered among the OpenJUMP community. I know for sure of
one (1) company that maintains a separate fork of OpenJUMP, but which monitors
our mailing list and likely grabs patches form our source code repository. They
never participate in the forums or make known their use of OpenJUMP in any
other public manner.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><u1:p> </u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>I think there is at least one other
company that does this.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><u1:p> </u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>I only learn of these companies when I am
contacted by private e-mail to work for them on OpenJUMP development, usually
by some headhunter. I actually did a little work for one of these companies
(which was not a great experience, but that is another story) and I was
surprised at how important OpenJUMP was to their operation. They even
distributed it to their customers.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><u1:p> </u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>I couldn’t for the life of me figure out
why this company wouldn’t take a more active role in supporting the OpenJUMP
community. I’m not necessarily talking about money here, but about writing
documentation, contributing their own patches, or answering questions on the
mailing lists. Our community is very informal and open, and an organization
could likely have a large influence on the direction the program took with an
investment of some resources.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><u1:p> </u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Is OpenJUMP the only community with these
open source lurkers? How many of these companies do you think there are? (I’m
not talking about one guy who downloads an open source app and uses it. I’m
talking about actual companies with more than one employee.)<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><u1:p> </u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Why don’t they get more involved? Are
they embarrassed? Do they not want their competition to find out about the open
source program they are benefiting from? Are they violating the terms of the
license and don’t want to get busted? Do they not understand that their
involvement is a key part of the program’s survival?<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><u1:p> </u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>This has become an important question for
me recently as the active development of OpenJUMP has slowed. We don’t have any
organizations actively participating in development. (Well, maybe one or two,
but they have been quiet lately.) I’m the only one working on serious
improvements or changes, and not just bug fixes. I would really like to reach
out to these lurkers to get them more involved. Ultimately, the survival of the
project may depend on it.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><u1:p> </u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>What do you think? Send an e-mail to the
project list with an invitation to contact me privately about getting more
involved? Are these lurkers worth the time?<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><u1:p> </u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Landon<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:black'><u1:p> </u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:13.5pt'><font size=4 color=black
face=Helvetica><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p><strong><b><font size=1 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:7.5pt;
font-family:Arial;color:black'>Warning:</span></font></b></strong><b><font
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</span></font></b><font size=1 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 color=black face=Helvetica><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black'>_______________________________________________<br>
Discuss mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Discuss@lists.osgeo.org">Discuss@lists.osgeo.org</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss">http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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