The Increasing Importance of Community 69
Jono Bacon writes "With the success of Ubuntu and Fedora, and the advent of OpenSuSE and Freespire, are businesses and distributions paying more attention to the community? The Increasing Importance of Community discuss this change in focus. What do you all think? Is the community now more of a priority?"
Community Vs Market Share (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a novel idea but "Communities of Practice" are now an enforced thing to take part in where I work. That's right, these CoPs are supposed to give us an opportunity to partake in idea creation and discussion
If I take the word "businesses" to mean literally any kind of business (not just that one operating system maker we all know and love), then I'd propose something like General Motors. Do you think General Motors values community within their company? Probably not. I'm sure they think about local communities [gm.com] but I doubt they're concerned with the communities within their company. That was just an example, I have nothing for or against GM.
Being able to post on a forum (anonymously, if you prefer) about anything from your working conditions to an idea you had is vital to the happiness of the workers. However, I've had bosses that I've pitched this to who just read it as a waste of company time--they feared addicts working the threads 24/7 (much like I do on Slashdot). I would prefer if they would see it as an investment in idea exchanges and employee satisfaction. Ha! That's not their concern!
Back to the original topic, I think that Linux distributions should be more concerned about their corner of the market. Microsoft is their competition. They make an amazing operating system. They aren't going to win the casual computer user by creating a community. They will win them through marketing and raising awareness. It's a cold hard thing to say but I think most of the developers for Linux should be concentrating on educating users about what they can provide. I learned about Linux in college from a friend but, looking back, there's really no reason why some flash advertisement on the side of a website couldn't have done the same.
If you're looking for reasons to get new users,
"Tired of forking money over to Microsoft?"
would probably be more effective than
"Join a community of people who will become abrasive if you're not at their level of intelligence!"
Now, if you're looking at keeping the users involved with the OS and the development of it, this community thing is the answer. I just don't think Linux distros risk losing that support. Their fanbase is extremely solid--the problem is that it is minute compared to Microsoft's.
Re:Community Vs Market Share (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately the digital community has all the same failings of a more traditional one amplified by the fact that anything said on a forum does not have direct consequences because it is not face to face communication and there is the matter of group think in a community all it takes is a few influential members and suddenly holders of other points of view become outcasts to the community as a whole. These three combined lead to a social group more easily controlled tha
Re:Community Vs Market Share (Score:2, Interesting)
Having worked with Windows, Exchange, Linux and Sendmail, I have found that it is a great deal easier to get answers when there are a lot of people who are interested in the software. It is hard to be interested in Windows and Exchange. The systems are closed, and it is darned hard to find an answer when something goes wrong. This weekend I was "on hold" for two hours trying to get a lousy hotfix. It is really h
Re:Community Vs Market Share (Score:3, Insightful)
They aren't going to win the casual computer user by creating a community.
They may not win the casual user, but I'd argue that having a strong community can certainly do a lot for retention. People need answers to problems they're experiencing, and with Linux, the community is the place to get them. If you have a strong community, people will feel good about their decision to convert, and perhaps convince others to
It's all about image (Score:4, Insightful)
<rant>
It's all part of the growing awareness by businesses that the world is full of blind-following, short-memory, fanboy, brand-fanatic idiots which, as long as they are being fed plenty of PR, will keep buying (not to mention singing praises to) crummy products even when they feel THAT sharp pain in their backsides.
["Sony rootkit, Sony bad, Sony bad!
</rant>
Re:It's all about image (Score:1)
Yeah, fortunately slashdotters see through tha...hey, wait a minute!
It's Very Important (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's Very Important (Score:1)
I think the Mac is a great example of this.: Now you've lost me, please explain.
Re:It's Very Important (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's Very Important (Score:2)
Re:It's Very Important (Score:1)
If so, sounds pretty elitist to me.
Personally, I think there are great communities to be found on most OSs, but they take a while to find.
Re:It's Very Important (Score:2)
I have observed the same thing about BeOS when I was using it in 1999-2000, even though BeOS didn't suceed. The BeUserTalk mailing list was a lot of fun back then, w
The INCREASING importance of community? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The INCREASING importance of community? (Score:4, Insightful)
Debian's community is the archtypical model of how to not have a community.
I've had good luck at both of the places I've mentioned. I especially like the Gentoo's. If you have a piece of software that isn't very well supported by its author, or which is hard to use because it's new and not often configured, you can probably find a guide or something in the Gentoo How-To-wiki.
If you find a quirk in a piece of software that is resulting in unintended behaviour, you can search the forums or bug reports, and probably someone else has encountered the same problem (and if the problem is at least two weeks old, then there's probably a fix).
And if you're not keen for any reading at all to find newbie answers, you can often find help on the Gentoo IRC group (keeping in mind that almost nobody with a job actually hangs out on IRC). If you're willing to wait long enough for a quality answer, you can also get one from the forums. They're known for that, actually.
I've got Debian running at work. Whenever I have a problem with it, I go to one of those places to get it fixed. While the fact that Debian has some community support is laudable, the difference between those communities I mentioned and Debian's is like the difference between a public library and an elementary school's, IMHO.
Re:The INCREASING importance of community? (Score:1)
Re:The INCREASING importance of community? (Score:2)
Re:The INCREASING importance of community? (Score:1)
I think a lot of stuff has to go through this process though. This buzzword period is kind of like the idea coming of age.
Re:The INCREASING importance of community? (Score:4, Insightful)
We all know that Linux is nothing but community, but that isn't the issue at hand. The issue at hand is just what role does community play in the field of commercial distros such as Red Hat and SuSe.
Get thee hence and read the actual article. It really isn't all that bad. You'll find that Ubuntu is brought up rather than Debian because Ubuntu is an attempt to make a commercially viable distro on the Debian model of community; and not just "ripping off" its code base for profit.
This puts it in an entirely different catagory from either the true community supported distros such as Debian and the purely commercial distros such as Linspire. It seeks, and at the moment largely defines, the middle ground between the community and the commercial corporation. The very ground the article is addressing as its point of interest.
Fedora, OpenSuSE and Freespire are essentially attempts to "reverse engineer" an Ubuntu type of community from a corporate culture. To bring "community" on board and retain relevance in the community drivin Linux world. They cannot attempt to reverse engineer a Debian type of community in the strict sense because they are all commercial distributions.
Although I tend to detest its use in the IT field, the phrase "impedence mismatch" comes to mind.
If it makes you feel any better Debian isn't specifically mentioned because Debian is the meta concept that the article stands upon. It is assumed as the natural state of things; and that we all share that assumption.
KFG
Re:The INCREASING importance of community? (Score:2)
Re:The INCREASING importance of community? (Score:2)
Up until about my third semester or so I didn't know that CS wasn't EE/CE. I would certainly have gone into it had I found out about it before then; by that point it was just too late. Besides I kind of like CS.
Re:The INCREASING importance of community? (Score:2)
Not to knock the various Linux distributions, but it seems that the Linux community in general embraces binary blobs drivers. and kernel developers put shit like NDIS wrapers into the kernel or drivers written under NDA.
Re:The INCREASING importance of community? (Score:2)
Repeat after me, kids:-
(After having messed your hair up, injecting some salt water into your eyes for that rabid, bloodshot look, and using a hoarse, wheezing scream for emphasis)
"Debian IS Linux!"
Re:The INCREASING importance of community? (Score:2)
Then there's the problem of resources. There are a finite number of people available to work on projects, and if communities keep popping up, you'r
Re:The INCREASING importance of community? (Score:1)
So if we want anything to work, we have to build, not tear down. Pointing out flaws can be ok, if we are not just being mean about it. Trashing a system, then designing a better one is great. Trashing a system, then creating a second, third...nth one in addition (the current Linu
Re:The INCREASING importance of community? (Score:1)
A fairly obvious (unpatented) development model (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Marketing alert! (Score:2)
It is important (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It is important (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that's kind of the point -- it's become clear to companies that formally supporting home desktop users is a dead end, so they're writing them off as an official market and leaving them to "the community".
Re:It is important (Score:2)
Farmed to the bottom of the pile (Score:4, Interesting)
Are we all just difficult pills? Or are we the cure to the boring workplace?
Re:Farmed to the bottom of the pile (Score:3, Insightful)
The psychology and social structure of a bunch of disparate programmers who are not on your payroll is a pill just too difficult to swallow, and one that is usually farmed to the bottom of the 'lets do this' pile.
Are we all just difficult pills? Or are we the cure to the boring workplace?
From the beginning of that paragraph in the article: The mistake a number of companies, both large and small have made when approaching Open Source is that they lack an understanding of the people who drive the tech
"Community" is another word for focus group (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Success of Fedora (Score:3, Insightful)
http://fedoranews.org/cms/node/583 [fedoranews.org]
Slackware on 40 floppies?? (Score:1)
Re:Slackware on 40 floppies?? (Score:1)
The success of Freespire?!! (Score:2)
Re:wait a minute (Score:2, Informative)
Linux community (Score:2)
Re:Linux community (Score:1, Insightful)
An unanswered question (Score:1)
However, by implication I've tended to suspect that Richard Stallman intended it to refer to his vision of a relatively small, highly insular group of individuals who, while being interested in mutual co-operation within said group, were distrustful at best (and openly contemptuous or hostile at worst) of outsiders. It also seemed to me to refer to a group environment in which a p
Re:An unanswered question (Score:1)
It seems pretty disingenuous to call GNU and the FSF insular - they have exponentially grown in their significance and users since the early nineties.
As far as cults, basically every group of any importance does seem like a cult to outsiders - to
Ah community... (Score:1)
Re:Ah community... (Score:2)
Absolutely (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Absolutely (Score:1)
You seem to have a deep distrust of developers. They are people too. Maybe once the nicer members of a community have helped you, you could help write those all important documents.
"did you RTFM, you $%#$ing n00b?" or "go play with your Windows, loser, if you don't want to learn stuff"
Those reactions are heavy stereotypes, unless you always ask flamebait questions or are running before you can walk. And on getting the occasional ins
Re:Absolutely (Score:2)
Damn right! You know why? Because I am one. I happen to be one of those who actually write documentation, and I can't tell you how lonely I've felt in this
> Those reactions are heavy stereotypes, unless you always ask flamebait
> questions or are running before you can walk.
Those reactions are actually direct quotes. There was a Slashdot article about that some time last month. In my personal experience, tech support for OSS projects has gotten mean
Re:Absolutely (Score:1)
So I didn't intend to put words in your mouth, but maybe it came out that way. You did put words in mine though. I don't think developers demand or necessarily deserve reverence. I do think there are quite a few problems with Linux distros. I never tell people to fix it themselves.
Just that there seems to be a lot of complaining about free help here on
Re:Absolutely (Score:2)
Perhaps so. It is one of my perpetually scratched festering sores. Sadly, this one is well justified.
> I don't think developers demand or necessarily deserve reverence.
You haven't spent much time working with OSS developers then. I do try to help out with various projects now and then, if only to get them to compile clean. You'd be amazed at what rude, arrogant, blistering morons I have ran into. It really saps any faith one might have had in the future o
the wall (Score:1)
I think with business that use Community as an accessory to their business will never achieve the success they hope for. Many large corporations have started adding executive blogs and these are useful but do not really engage the reader to comment, ask questions, and feel like they "matter." These kinds of attempts at community feel wrong to me - like the Leader is giving a speech or address rather than soliciting interaction. Also, it tends to fee
Mixed feelings (Score:2)
On the other hand I don't think that it always works as good as it sounds at first. I'm a long time Linux user, and I personally think that SuSE 10.0, the first community influenced version, was laking in quality. For the very first time I got an error message box during installation (that wasn't caused by a defec
good for linux (Score:1)
It always was that way (Score:2)
Vik
linux = community (Score:1)
Transparency (Score:1)
yes - it's what I'm paid for (Score:2)
As a consultant - all I do is help startups and organizations really "get" this whole community thing. Many \
factors are pushing it, but mostly increased communication.
Ok, this is fucking sad (Score:1)
Pretty much says it all, doesn't it? Community decay at it's very finest.