On the topic of habari, I came across an interesting post today.
Seems like there are too many cooks, but no head chef running the project, so everything is a long discussion. I understand the project is getting organized and whatnot, and as new people come in, their visions need to be dealt with, but I fear the project will split into two if someone doesn’t come in and get people organized. ~ D3 Habari
An interesting comment - which on the surface makes immediate sense. After all, how can any project survive without a ‘fearless leader’?
And in some ways it’s both a lack of understanding of how a collective can indeed make decisions and influence change, as well as the expectation that ’someone’ must always take the reigns, make the hard calls and generally steer the ship. A ships captain, if you will.
It can work quite well - indeed Wordpress has a leader, whom steers the ship, whilst his hearty crew (and indeed some of the community) set the mainsail and keep the ship on an even keel.
However, there is a risk inherent in the stereotypical approach borrowed from closed source software development that is pushed into the Open Source sphere.. and that is, detachment from the community that helped push wordpress where it is today.
What was one an open source, community driven idea, steered unerringly well by Mr M, has become a partially corportate driven entity, whom have begun, ever so slowly, to forget who actually helped pushed them to the top of the blogging software heap.
So now we have the inevitable ideas and kvetch call to the masses, that can only ever really be needed, when the masses are no longer heard. Don’t get me wrong, it’s pleasing to see the WP development team reach out for ideas and issues.
The problem I have with such a call, is that it simply shouldn’t be necessary in an open source product to begin with.
Which is where I cannot help but compare the disconnection felt by increasing numbers of WP stalwarts, as they grapple with the realisation that the boat has, to keep the marine theme, already sailed. It’s already heading towards the point where, eventually, the team responsible for WP, will cease to interact with the common user - becoming, in a sense, open source in licence only.
The dreamer in me, hopes the “call for voices” isn’t just for show - that Matt genuinely understands the implications and warning signs of having the community around WP begin to seek something better. It’s not just a few, insignificant voices such as my own - there are many who helped shape, build and support wordpress, who have simply given up and now seek something fresh and inclusive.
Which ties me neatly back to the post above. Habari is based on a concept of an inclusive, meritocracy - just as the Apache Foundation is.
And I just don’t think people truly ‘get’ the idea. It scales beautifully, has a tendency to have many natural leaders lead, attracts many voices to help the project grow and above all else, builds a community that has a vested interest in the outcomes.
Habari doesn’t ‘need’ a single voice to direct it’s development - that development is ongoing and benefits to a greater degree every single time a new voice discovers a great concept, adds code to make it happen, or triggers that spark of genius, turning a simple idea, into a great one.
With many voices, support and guidance, the habari developers are always in constant touch with the fast growing community, which can only ever lead to greater things.
≡ This is a journal entry relating to the topics of habari, noteworthy, reflections, software, wordpress.
Brendan Borlase is a Systems and Network Administrator living in Adelaide, Australia, having lived, worked and breathed Information Technology for over 12 years. Learn more.
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Jan 15th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
First off, thanks for the link. Secondly, the post was an attempt to spur them into at least setting up a “ruling council” of sorts, and that seems like exactly what they are going to do. I look forward to seeing how things unfold for Habari, and if the folks running WordPress will actually take advantage of all the wonderful advice they are getting.
Jan 16th, 2007 at 1:53 am
Thanks for your thoughts.
Jan 16th, 2007 at 6:39 am
The people who consistently contribute to the Habari project will be eligible for entry into the project team. The project team are those who can commit to the subversion source repository, and modify issue reports. The project team members have a binding voice in any vote that occurs, and are responsible for selecting the next generation of project team members.
DrBacchus explains meritocracy fairly well, and I encourage you to read his post.
With respect to voting: sometimes such a large group of interested people will never reach a natural consensus, and a formal vote must be coordinated in order to move the project past a cotnentious issue. While all participants on the mailing list are welcome to weigh in with their opinion, only those members of the project team have a binding vote; so it is only the tally of votes from project members that will decide such a vote.
Jan 16th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Skippy,
Thanks for the comments.
As I would expect, the core development team has the final say so in the project - the point I was making is that that tends to foster a natural and less confrontational leadership style, with dev’s working together on a reasonably equal footing, rather than the typical front man calling the shots and everyone follows.
At some point, there will be a ’split’ in how to move forward, it always happens in any project. The difference with habari is that rather than a leader going in one direction, the troops in the other - the whole core dev team will move as one..
Which is pretty cool when you stop to think about it.
Jan 18th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
“The problem I have with such a call, is that it simply shouldn’t be necessary in an open source product to begin with.”
I would say the main problem that has hurt WP development in the past 6 months hasn’t been a lack of feedback or input into the dev process, it’s been that the voice of normal people, the type who aren’t on the hackers list or contributors, hasn’t been heard. When I try to stick up for things that will benefit these folks hugely, like a WYSIWYG editor, people who disagree with me sometimes attack me as a dictator rather than debating the ideas.
As for WP being more corporate, I think if you looked at the actual data behind things you’d find something wildly different. 2.1 includes more code from more people than ever in WP’s history.
At the end of the day users care about results, not process. 2.1 and 2.2 will be very telling releases for WordPress, they’re either going to reaffirm we’re on the right path, a merit-driven contributor model with a final decision maker if needed, or that something needs to change. If something needs to change, it will. The life of WordPress is more important to me than my personal involvement in it, and I’m going to do the right thing for the community even if it’s not what I would personally choose. It’s tough sometimes, but nothing worth doing is easy.
Jan 18th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
warning - slightly lengthy comment :)
Indeed. However, if people who wish to speak up, are hammered down by others, then there is something wrong with the feedback process, the dev team are too busy to listen or have a clear idea of what they believe should be result and do not wish to deviate from it.
Please - understand that isn’t an attack, rather it can be the nature of the development cycle when deadlines or tight timeframes are involved.
That you “stick up” for the down trodden is very magnanimous, but really will often be viewed as wanting to have it your way - instead of being community input, it’s perceived as just your voice.
Raising bug tickets shouldn’t be the only method available - regular requests for feedback and investing time into actually listening will always be highly beneficial.
As a side note, I am very much aware there are a number of dev’s who aren’t part of Automattic, who are indeed drawn from the community.
But the two are not separate Matt. Without an inclusive feedback process (and not just the bug tracker), the results are going to be skewed or incomplete.
Sure, squashing bugs, adding features and tightening security are important. But so is an understanding of where bloggers want to go, what features they need or how much a part of the community they feel.
The bug tracker will only ever tell part of the story. The email newsgroups can be overwhelming - particularly if a dev (or aggressive fan) gets defensive over a topic.
The forums aren’t an avenue either - although fantastic if support is needed.
The speed at which new ideas, people and processes flow into and within the Habri community is quite simply down to the development team actively encouraging input, rather than rejecting everything outright, that doesn’t fit their agenda.
Despite appearances - results by themselves, aren’t everything.
Jan 19th, 2007 at 9:58 am
“rather it can be the nature of the development cycle when deadlines or tight timeframes are involved.!”
I think you’re the first person to accuse 2.1 of being a tight timeframe. ;)
“Raising bug tickets shouldn’t be the only method available - regular requests for feedback and investing time into actually listening will always be highly beneficial.”
I completely agree, which is why we took the time to get the ideas forum going, it’s one of the lowest friction ways I’ve seen in any OS project for a regular person to submit ideas. A web form is infinitely friendlier than mailing lists, even Google Groups.
I have seen suggestions from newbies shot down on wp-hackers, though it generally hasn’t been from myself or another core dev, but it’s usually because people get caught up in implementation details rather than deciding whether the idea itself is good or not. The list can also exhibit a bikeshed problem.
Just because it’s a new project doesn’t mean people don’t take their opinions and biases with them, for example see the recent Habari discussion on tags and categories. I don’t think either approach is better or worse, just different.
Jan 19th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
2.1 has slipped longer than public expectation would suggest it should have - but by the same token there have been a huge number of changes (and thus problems) to bed down.
It’s still in need of some work - but it’ll be shipped anyway. Such is the nature of the development cycle. :)
Finally someone else who shares the same feeling that mailing groups, including google groups, aren’t the total answer.
I’ve had this debate with some in the Habari team over and over again - who ‘wearing the geek hat’ just assume every blogger is a geek or internet savant.
Which is about as removed from the truth as is possible to be.
In any community driven product, one needs a multi-faceted approach, combining groups, forums and feedback methodologies so everyone has a way to speak.
Indeed. It’s quite something to behold. There is a lot of opinion, a lot of bias comes from either loving, or hating, a particular blog feature.
I think the important thing to note, however, is that once folks, generally, get a chance to actually ‘air’ their thoughts, things calm down and a consensus is often reached.
And that’s an important motivator to a lot of people - being able to actually have a say (that may, or may not) actually influence change or a new direction. It causes people to have a vested interest in a project.
Developers can learn, in some cases, just as much about a UI element, design feature or even core process, from someone who is new to blogging and sees things an ‘old timer’ would never consider.
Thanks for making the time to comment, Matt.
Jan 25th, 2007 at 7:24 am
Sorry to be so late to the party here:
This discussion is a great one to bring up Matt, because it is a discussion. Of course people bring thier own biases and baggage into the project; The difference is that we are hashing through hard problems and finding the best way to go forward. If someone puts forth a good argument with technical merit, it will be accepted.
I can’t stop that acceptance even if I wanted to, since these decisions require consensus from the pmc, not just me.
I have voted in favor of decisions that were not my favorites more than once, take for example the new URL API. I HATE regex and will not use it. But that is the way the new API is going.
It was the best decision regardless of my feeling on it. And the PMC made the decision to include it. Period.
We obviously disagree on the two approaches:
But that is fine with me. To each his own. I am glad that you are following along with some of what we are doing, having someone outside of the community aware of things helps keep us honest. Call us on anything you think should be dealt with better.
We like to listen.