Comments on: Cathedrals and Bazaars http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/ Mapping knowledge online since 1999 Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:38:21 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: Bruce http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/comment-page-1/#comment-56487 Bruce Sun, 08 Apr 2007 14:09:38 +0000 http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/#comment-56487 @Ed: good question. I don't know if there are any restrictions tied to their grant money, but it would be good for the long-term viabiility of the project to have outside committers. Imagine what would happen if for some reason the grant money dried up? @Ed: good question. I don’t know if there are any restrictions tied to their grant money, but it would be good for the long-term viabiility of the project to have outside committers. Imagine what would happen if for some reason the grant money dried up?

]]> By: Ed Summers http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/comment-page-1/#comment-45166 Ed Summers Tue, 13 Feb 2007 01:30:18 +0000 http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/#comment-45166 I'm just curious to know if anyone outside the dev team has "proven themself" enough so that they have commit privs. I’m just curious to know if anyone outside the dev team has “proven themself” enough so that they have commit privs.

]]> By: Wally http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/comment-page-1/#comment-44495 Wally Thu, 08 Feb 2007 00:37:37 +0000 http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/#comment-44495 Well said, Josh. I completely agree with you. I don't have that much experience in Cathedrals but I do know how software gets developed - and it always seems to come back to reliance on those who are willing (and skilled enough) to actually do the work. That's not to say that great ideas don't occur to people who are incapable of joining the project as developers. Happens all the time - user feedback, suggestions, etc. I'd say the Zotero project has been much more open, much earlier than any grant-funded project I'm aware of. I suggest that once the development group has heard the same suggestion over and over it merits consideration - unless, of course, all the suggestions seem to come from the same person :) Well said, Josh. I completely agree with you. I don’t have that much experience in Cathedrals but I do know how software gets developed – and it always seems to come back to reliance on those who are willing (and skilled enough) to actually do the work. That’s not to say that great ideas don’t occur to people who are incapable of joining the project as developers. Happens all the time – user feedback, suggestions, etc. I’d say the Zotero project has been much more open, much earlier than any grant-funded project I’m aware of. I suggest that once the development group has heard the same suggestion over and over it merits consideration – unless, of course, all the suggestions seem to come from the same person :)

]]> By: AI3:::Adaptive Information » Blog Archive » Seeking Grace: A Not-So-Innocent Bystander’s View of Academic Open Source http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/comment-page-1/#comment-43295 AI3:::Adaptive Information » Blog Archive » Seeking Grace: A Not-So-Innocent Bystander’s View of Academic Open Source Fri, 02 Feb 2007 02:15:52 +0000 http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/#comment-43295 [...] Such promise generates excitement and early evangelists. One of those evangelists, however, frustrated with the pace and degree of responsiveness from the program, went public with a call to better embrace Raymond’s “bazaar” aspects of open source (see this reference and its comments). That, in turn, with its comments, spurred another response from one of the Zotero team leaders speaking unofficially called Cathedrals and Bazaars, also in reference to Raymond’s treatise. [...] [...] Such promise generates excitement and early evangelists. One of those evangelists, however, frustrated with the pace and degree of responsiveness from the program, went public with a call to better embrace Raymond’s “bazaar” aspects of open source (see this reference and its comments). That, in turn, with its comments, spurred another response from one of the Zotero team leaders speaking unofficially called Cathedrals and Bazaars, also in reference to Raymond’s treatise. [...]

]]> By: Warren http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/comment-page-1/#comment-43104 Warren Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:59:26 +0000 http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/#comment-43104 Tricky wordpress... That "absolutely" shouldn't be crossed-out, and my *heart* should have asterisks around it. Have I even used an Internet before?? Tricky wordpress… That “absolutely” shouldn’t be crossed-out, and my *heart* should have asterisks around it. Have I even used an Internet before??

]]> By: Warren http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/comment-page-1/#comment-43103 Warren Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:57:53 +0000 http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/#comment-43103 Josh, you know I'm about as much a coder as I am a penguin, so I throw in my $.02 at risk of embarrassment. My believe is that you ought to stay in the cathedral for as long as you want. Opened Sauce has its place, but I think that there is too often a dogmatic presupposition by the developer set that it serves the user community to have as many cooks in the kitchen as possible, and at the cost of stability and usability. I'm *absolutely* sure you and your brethren are making wise choices, but the more "community involvement" ebbs towards "representative democracy" the more intolerable the software and the community tends to become. In any case, FWIW, enter the bazaar with eyes wide open. I *heart* Zotero. Josh, you know I’m about as much a coder as I am a penguin, so I throw in my $.02 at risk of embarrassment. My believe is that you ought to stay in the cathedral for as long as you want. Opened Sauce has its place, but I think that there is too often a dogmatic presupposition by the developer set that it serves the user community to have as many cooks in the kitchen as possible, and at the cost of stability and usability. I’m *absolutely* sure you and your brethren are making wise choices, but the more “community involvement” ebbs towards “representative democracy” the more intolerable the software and the community tends to become.

In any case, FWIW, enter the bazaar with eyes wide open. I *heart* Zotero.

]]> By: noksagt http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/comment-page-1/#comment-43088 noksagt Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:43:14 +0000 http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/#comment-43088 Re. the word plugin in svn--Dan mentioned it is in the extension/trunk directroy: https://www.zotero.org/svn/extension/trunk/ Guess I missed it when I was following the current branch. Re. the word plugin in svn–Dan mentioned it is in the extension/trunk directroy:
https://www.zotero.org/svn/extension/trunk/

Guess I missed it when I was following the current branch.

]]> By: noksagt http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/comment-page-1/#comment-43010 noksagt Wed, 31 Jan 2007 02:52:09 +0000 http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/#comment-43010 "I reserve the right to clean up the code of comments." Ah--that's why the HTML was stripped from my note. Sorry if it is more difficult to read without a clear use of quotes and the links to different svn directories. Let me know if something isn't clear! “I reserve the right to clean up the code of comments.”

Ah–that’s why the HTML was stripped from my note. Sorry if it is more difficult to read without a clear use of quotes and the links to different svn directories. Let me know if something isn’t clear!

]]> By: noksagt http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/comment-page-1/#comment-43009 noksagt Wed, 31 Jan 2007 02:49:26 +0000 http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/#comment-43009 Thanks for addressing Bruce's post. He spoke for a lot of us. At this point, if you want to participate, you can get full read access to our bug tracking and versioning system, and write access once you’ve proven yourself. I appreciate that you've decided to have anonymous Trac access. This will really help to see what you're planning/doing & to provide helpful feedback to end-users in the forums. We currently have access to the firefox extension, but the root is password protected & I don't see any way to track your other projects. I would still like to see EVERYTHING you guys make in version control. I don't believe the Word macro is in there yet. If you guys have started your web-based collaboration tool, I hope that you give the URL for the repo (even before you release it). I know you haven't started the OO.o extension (only because you've said ad much). I hope that, as soon as someone does start it, it will also be in subversion. It is O.K. for a lone coder to take it upon himself to make a significant dent in a project (like the Word plugin). But that work should still become trackable by the rest of the "bazaar." the forums are extremely active, and we’re proud of a level of responsiveness by the whole team there that far surpasses expectations for an open source project. The forums are EXCELLENT for end-users. Unfortunately, most developer questions do not get answered & I haven't seen any that have provoked real discussion about design. I am glad that you plan to push more of this design discussions onto the dev list. Thanks for addressing Bruce’s post. He spoke for a lot of us.

At this point, if you want to participate, you can get full read access to our bug tracking and versioning system, and write access once you’ve proven yourself.

I appreciate that you’ve decided to have anonymous Trac access. This will really help to see what you’re planning/doing & to provide helpful feedback to end-users in the forums.

We currently have access to the firefox extension, but the root is password protected & I don’t see any way to track your other projects. I would still like to see EVERYTHING you guys make in version control. I don’t believe the Word macro is in there yet.
If you guys have started your web-based collaboration tool, I hope that you give the URL for the repo (even before you release it). I know you haven’t started the OO.o extension (only because you’ve said ad much). I hope that, as soon as someone does start it, it will also be in subversion.

It is O.K. for a lone coder to take it upon himself to make a significant dent in a project (like the Word plugin). But that work should still become trackable by the rest of the “bazaar.”

the forums are extremely active, and we’re proud of a level of responsiveness by the whole team there that far surpasses expectations for an open source project.

The forums are EXCELLENT for end-users. Unfortunately, most developer questions do not get answered & I haven’t seen any that have provoked real discussion about design.

I am glad that you plan to push more of this design discussions onto the dev list.

]]> By: Matthias http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/comment-page-1/#comment-42984 Matthias Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:49:57 +0000 http://www.epistemographer.com/2007/01/30/cathedrals-and-bazaars/#comment-42984 Josh, many thanks for your post, I appreciate your response! It's truly amazing what the Zotero team has reached so far. That said, I do share Bruce's sentiments. As a third-party developer, I'm very much interested in helping out to build a thriving Zotero developer community, but what's lacking right now is the big picture. What is your vision, what are your *big* plans for the future? I understand that it takes some extra effort (and risk) to share these ideas in the open, but it helps external developers to react accordingly and hopefully provide for helpful input. In my opinion, the biggest thing about Zotero (besides Zotero's translator capabilities) is it's support for modern & upcoming bibliographic standards, such as Bruce's CSL, or RDF, COinS and MODS XML. From the viewpoint of a third-party developer, these are the areas that I'd like to see developed further. Talk with us about your plans for extending these standards-based features (microformats, unAPI, RSS, OpenSearch, server/client API). You said: "we’d love it if someone else would step up and start building that functionality, rather than waiting for us to do so". Developing for a foreign application always takes time and requires a sound understanding of its inner workings. By sharing your future plans early and letting third-party developers participate in your planning-stage discussions, you'll actually increase chances that somebody else steps in and develops something before you've even found time to think of it yourself. Josh, many thanks for your post, I appreciate your response! It’s truly amazing what the Zotero team has reached so far. That said, I do share Bruce’s sentiments.

As a third-party developer, I’m very much interested in helping out to build a thriving Zotero developer community, but what’s lacking right now is the big picture. What is your vision, what are your *big* plans for the future? I understand that it takes some extra effort (and risk) to share these ideas in the open, but it helps external developers to react accordingly and hopefully provide for helpful input.

In my opinion, the biggest thing about Zotero (besides Zotero’s translator capabilities) is it’s support for modern & upcoming bibliographic standards, such as Bruce’s CSL, or RDF, COinS and MODS XML. From the viewpoint of a third-party developer, these are the areas that I’d like to see developed further. Talk with us about your plans for extending these standards-based features (microformats, unAPI, RSS, OpenSearch, server/client API).

You said: “we’d love it if someone else would step up and start building that functionality, rather than waiting for us to do so”.

Developing for a foreign application always takes time and requires a sound understanding of its inner workings. By sharing your future plans early and letting third-party developers participate in your planning-stage discussions, you’ll actually increase chances that somebody else steps in and develops something before you’ve even found time to think of it yourself.

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