# It's the community, stupid



## CuatroTorres (Jan 28, 2022)

It’s the community, stupid
					

I’ve been thinking about what open source is a lot lately. I mean A LOT, probably more than is healthy. There have been a ton of open source happenings in the world and the discussions around…




					opensourcesecurity.io


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## grahamperrin@ (Jan 29, 2022)

Sweet. 



> … The end state is to build a community that is self sufficient, that grows and changes on its own. … steered by the people who are doing the work. Community is about collaboration, discussion, understanding, and *most importantly, empathy*. …


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## msplsh (Jan 29, 2022)

heh, wait, hold on...

"It's the community, stupid"

"most importantly, empathy"


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## RoGeorge (Jan 30, 2022)

Looks like the author is getting sentimental about the first stages of a community, just like the start-up years use to be.  Very nice period in the life of any community, indeed, when everybody is happy, good willing and hard working.

What intrigues me is why such a blissful state doesn't last forever.  What usually happens is, in time, value starts to pile up in such communities.  And too much value or too much success attracts the crowds.  Eventually, others will want to become followers, and others will want to piggyback on that community and will want its values in one way or another.

Then, the community become mainstream, flooded with more people than that happy community can assimilate and still remain happy.  Eventually, the crowds overwhelm the initial community and turns into into something else.  Not by malware intentions, but simply by the numbers.  Too many and too fast.  Typical example, the Internet community was a very nice place when it was only a handful of people out there.  Today, not any more, the Internet is too popular.

Another danger for a happy community is dealing with its own complexity growth.  When members keep contributing (let's say, like the voluntary work for an OS), at some point it all became too complex to handle by each individuals.  Specialization came first, then dedicated management is needed, then bureaucracy, and so on.

Complexity has its costs, just like popularity.

Another danger is the trend of "constant growth YoY", very common in business, meaning Year over Year growth with a certain percentage.  The trap here is that constant growth (y = y + n/100 * y) is in fact an exponential function, meaning it is not sustainable.  At some point, that growth pattern will make anything crumble down under its own weight.

The word "stupid" doesn't bother me there, it is not used there as a derogatory word.

Communities can be great, and empathy plays a big role.  Tolerance, too.  Small communities can be a true utopia, indeed.  What we should be aware of is that there are no such thing like big-scale sustainable utopias.


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## Jose (Jan 30, 2022)

msplsh said:


> heh, wait, hold on...
> 
> "It's the community, stupid"
> 
> "most importantly, empathy"


Point taken, but this has become a common idiom in the U.S. It dates back to the 1992 presidential election. It's original form was "it's the economy, stupid." You see a lot of these "it's the X, stupid" formulations, but usually in a political context. It is a little odd in this context.

I scanned the article and was unimpressed. Basically, the Elastic folks tried to squeeze more money from their open source project, and some of the for-profit companies they were looking to extract money from retaliated with a fork. I guess this bleating is supposed to try and rally the "community" to Elastic's side. I usually root for injuries in this kind of fight.


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## msplsh (Jan 30, 2022)

I didn't read it, but if this is about elastic, people don't look too favorably towards "I am altering the deal [with our CLA], pray I don't alter it any further"


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## kpedersen (Jan 30, 2022)

For an open-source project, when it comes to _creating the best possible software_ vs _babysitting the less able_ of the community, this is often quite tricky and often mutually exclusive unfortunately.

I do agree that there *should* be more to cater for the latter but I don't think software projects are really the best place for it. Software engineers aren't always renowned for their empathy (we do work with machines after all!) so really communities are not a formal output of many free projects. Weirdly the communities still do end up more welcoming than i.e Microsoft and Apple. Go figure!


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## grahamperrin@ (Jan 30, 2022)

msplsh said:


> I didn't read it, but if this is about elastic, …



Yes and no. 

<https://old.reddit.com/comments/l0m56s/-/> ▶ *Amazon: NOT OK - why we had to change Elastic licensing | Elastic Blog* (2021-01-19) ◀ <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25833781>


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## Deleted member 30996 (Jan 31, 2022)

The Title made me think of Vladimir Lenin and gave me insight into his mindset when he made the "useful idiots" remark.

I read every word of the article with great interest. Both in what he had to say about The Community, while addressing the community in that manner, from what he sees as an Enlightened position as a member of that community.



> There’s no limit, or rules, or order to any of this. The community does whatever it wants.



All that pie in the sky made Crazy White Boy hungry for some coconut pie.


First of all, I'm not a member of his community, nor would I be considered "one of them".



kpedersen said:


> For an open-source project, when it comes to _creating the best possible software_ vs _babysitting the less able_ of the community, this is often quite tricky and often mutually exclusive unfortunately.


He sees "The Community"  as being open source minded in ideology and working toward that goal. While critically lacking in self-awareness as a writer.



kpedersen said:


> I do agree that there *should* be more to cater for the latter but I don't think software projects are really the best place for it.


Here we go. kpetersen, who has my utmost respect, sees it.  There is a Tribal Hierarchy in the Community.



kpedersen said:


> \Software engineers aren't always renowned for their empathy (we do work with machines after all!


I'm not a Software Engineer, have never taken a computer course, never worked in IT and didn't even finish High School.

Who would have guessed? Nobody did.

Not till I said something a few years ago, just when things were going good, for reasons you could not begin to understand. That is my way..

I'm a QMRP, an EMT,a Behaviorist and trained observer. Addressing inappropriate behaviors my specialized area of expertise. I'm an Authority Figure in my own right, second to none..

Software Engineers are, in compassion, a beautiful field of daisy's flourishing under the empathic rays of the Summer Sun. But the Sun is eclipsed by the Moon.

I see things from a much different perspective, but it took me this long to see it clearly.

Did you ever hear definitively why the forums were down over the weekend? No you did not. Know why?


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## CuatroTorres (Feb 1, 2022)

After all, numbers rule according to Matt Asay (pro-GPL). The license was not decisive in this case, the business was established and the need was acquired.






						Elastic keeps ticking | InfoWorld
					

Despite the mudslinging over its licensing change from open source, company growth indicates that customers are likely less concerned with source code.




					www.infoworld.com


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## Jose (Feb 1, 2022)

CuatroTorres said:


> After all, numbers rule according to Matt Asay (pro-GPL). The license was not decisive in this case, the business was established and the need was acquired.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


"Matt Asay runs partner marketing at MongoDB." Hardly a disinterested party. More tiresome spin.








						Articles by Matt Asay
					

Read expert opinions by Matt Asay at InfoWorld.com




					www.infoworld.com


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## CuatroTorres (Feb 1, 2022)

Yeah, if the numbers are correct, he is saying that most of the committers of this type of complex projects work for the company and the change of license does not matter. Everything stays at home. The point really is in the license and it's a practical but misleading view.


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## msplsh (Feb 1, 2022)

I read the article.  It sounds like he doesn't like criticism of whatever he thinks open source is.  Considering he works at Elastic, I guess we know what that criticism is.  My original comment stands.  This piece of work is inseparable from that kerfuffle and is otherwise meaningless.


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## ralphbsz (Feb 1, 2022)

Well, the person who wrote that seems to think that "community" means that you can find lots of volunteers (bored college students?) who will do all the development work and testing for your company. While you retain creative control and keep the IP rights. Right. Keep dreaming.

For a little while about 25 years ago, that actually sort of worked a little bit. Except that the people who retained creative control and kept the IP rights were not so much for-profit companies, but "thought leaders" like Linus or RMS. For the last 15 years or so, the bulk of open source work has been done by engineers paid by for-profit companies, for their own benefit. Appealing to "community" because you can't afford to pay software engineers (because your business model has failed, since it forgot to take reality into account) is a desperate hail mary pass.


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