Every Open Source community is unique. Therefore community values might differ from case to case. Of course some communities (especially Open Source driven) share common values, but still they have distinctive features. Here are some of the values that members of Open Coral project should share. This is not ‘the’ list or anything final. Furthermore the values listed and described here are normative. Instead of making extensive lists of “do’s and dont’s” I prefer to have a simple set of ethical (yet practical) guidelines. It must be noted that I don’t make the rules or guidelines for any community, not Open Coral or any other. In other words, the following are just my thoughts based on my previous experiences in other open source projects and communities. Purpose of guidelines is to build and maintain spirit that creates best results. Anyway, here is draft for ‘Community Guidelines’, which need the acceptance of Open Coral community.
Prefer social aspects over code
Visualize the structure, activity and development of community not only the code. Huge amount of code or contributors does not necessarily help achieving great results and sustainability. Don’t get me wrong. Code is what counts after all, but code is not the tool to achieve results. Instead, code is the result. Make the community lively and active, feed it with ideas, enable sharing of different resources and ideas. Make participants feel like ‘home’, let them feel like empowered (possibly even more than just feeling), if possible encourage people to meet each other at least in team level. In brief, let inspiration flow among networked people. That in turn will make participants more active and code will flow.
To put the above in one sentence: understand what’s going on in project both in code level and socially, don’t just count LOCs (lines of code).
Prefer activity over planning
Making comprehensive documentation, fancy diagrams and database models or lengthy negotations might convince some. We prefer to do first. Making ‘something’ available in early stage (unfinished and harsh) to community lowers the barrier to engage. Finished and polished plans leave little (or none) room for new ideas. Such plans may result to perception of exclusion. Doing creates often something visible and that creates feeling of progression, which in turn can lure in more contributors. Of course doing something that is not needed creates frustration and divergence. Choosing ‘right’ things to do and ‘right’ direction can be found by means of open communication.
Prefer Openness and transparency over borders
This refers mainly to governance aspects. Value interaction and sharing. Be committed to being open about your information and transparent about how decisions are made. Creating artificial boundaries and borders suffocate creativity and flow of information. An example of artificial boundary are borders between teams. Let people move around, share thoughts and mix. People who are involved in more than one team are key members, since they transfer knowledge from team to another. Anything blocking information flow is a threat to community and success. Everyone is entitled to remove those threats. Consider yourself being empowered.
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2011, Jarkko Moilanen. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
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