David Eaves thinks that community leadership is *the* core, make-or-break competency of an open-source software project. I agree.
He shares a story that illustrates a pattern I’ve rarely seen in the Plone community, and hope to continue not seeing. 😉
One of the key ideas I’m interested in pushing is how “open†open
source communities are – and how they can make themselves easier to
join. I actually had an interesting experience while at FSOSS that
highlighted how subtle this challenge can be.During one of the lunch breaks Mark Surman and I ran a Birds of a Feather
session on Community Management as the Core Competency of Open Source
Communities. In the lead up to the session, a leader of a prominent
open source community (I knew this because it said so on his name tag)
walked up to me and asked:“Are you running this BoF?†(Birds of a Feather)
Not being hip to the lingo I replied… “What’s a BoF? I’m not super techie so I don’t know all the terms.â€
To which he replied “Evidently.†and walked away.
And thus ended my first contact with this particular open source
community. With its titular leader nonetheless. Needless to say, it
didn’t leave a positive impression.
The lesson:
At some point everyone has to have a first contact with a community –
that first impression may be a strong determinant about where they
volunteer their time and contribute their free labour. Any good
open-source community will probably want to get it right.