Open Source: Cave or Community?

[Dan Brickley]

On Mon, 3 Jun 2002, Russell Turpin wrote:

> Luis Villa:
> >At least in the GNOME community, most developers are in IRC most of their
> >free time, and I know AOL and MS are pushing IM in 'real'corporations to
> >facilitate
> >this same type of 'unplanned' interaction.
>
> IM is still intentional communication. It doesn't
> occur until someone purposely says something. Hallway
> encounters have the characteristic that they generate
> conversation when neither party intended. You meant
> to step outside for a smoke, Harry to get a coke from
> the fridge, and when you cross, social custom demands
> some exchange. "Hi." "How's your wife?" "She's getting
> better. How's that program coming along?" "I still
> don't like having to query the database just for .."

The RDF Interest Group IRC channel is a bit like this. A lot
of us leave it going in the background, then get drawn into
ad-hoc collaborations, design discussions, gossip when others
have 'hi, how you doing...?' interactions. A 24x7 meeting place...

It helps that it is all logged, and there are irc2www blogging tools.

See http://rdfig.xmlhack.com/ http://www.w3.org/RDF/Interest/#irc
and nearby...

Dan


-- 
mailto:danbri@w3.org
http://www.w3.org/People/DanBri/