Category Archives: Community

You Do Not Scale

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“Most developers are itching to be a part of their favorite projects. You do not scale, but by giving developers tools and getting out of their way, your project can. So please remember that when issues are reported on your open source project, you should not fix them. I hope this serves you well and would love to hear about your experiences and help any way I can.”
By Wesley Beary in “Less is More published Nov 27, 2011. Hat tip Jake Dahn.

A leader will always lead by being prepared to do the work themselves, but I’m really feeling what @geemus wrote.

It is in the ethos of the WordPress community, and the company, my former employer, Matt Mullenweg formed to support it. Here is my favorite part of the Automattic Creed:

“I will never pass up an opportunity to help out a colleague, and I’ll remember the days before I knew everything.”

I’m excited by the help I’m receiving from my new colleagues at Piston Cloud and the OpenStack community.

Pistoneers are kindred spirits of Automatticians. Before joining the Piston Cloud team I noted automation being a regular theme on “Our Team“.

Diversity Depends on Individuality

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2. You should write your own biography, not delegate it to invisible masses on Wikipedia.

3. You should write other people’s biographies, from your point of view. Or at least tell true stories about them, which can be assembled by others into alternate views.

4. Sign your name to all your writing. Use your real name, the one on your driver’s license, tax returns, passport, draft card.

5. If you care about a subject, write a definitive piece on it that reflects your point of view,. Don’t settle for a compromise, group-think sanitized version in the form of a Wikipedia page.

Dave Winer, “Corporate media is the problem“, Jan 17th, 2010

Google thinks I hate them!

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The other day I was trying to figure out a problem I was having with Google’s awesome Gmail, and whether to let Google know about their problem, when I remembered that Google thinks I (and Flock) hate them.

I actually own a Google shirt and enjoy wearing it. I admire the people of Google.

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WordCamp 2007 Videos on UHF

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I have had the pleasure of spending some of my time sitting with John “One Man’s Blog, Specialization is for Insects” Pozadzides today. He is the person of the hour, or will be, recording WordCamp 2007.

July 23rd Update: the brilliant Colin Devroe feeling better on day 2 has posted a few videos from WordCamp:

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If Linux is a Woman and Women in Tech

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“She’s high-maintenance with multiple personalities (read: distros) and expects you to be a mind reader when something goes wrong when you just met her. No Linux deserves better than that. Linux deserves the truth. Bring on a nerdy, brainy, hacker guy. No less will do.”
Comment by Sandra F

Unfortunately, Sandra is correct. “Linux is still regarded as being a geeky system only.” Thankfully, Linux is a work in progress and rapidly improving.

Those Novell commercials with Linux as a woman are a great reminder that of all three platforms, the ratio of women to men that use each desktop OS has to be the lowest on Linux. Thankfully, it is a problem that many people take seriously. LinuxChix seems like a good resource.

I would be interesting to find out what initiatives and successes Ubuntu, Red Hat and Novell have had getting diverse participation in their products? Particularly Ubuntu because as a community they seem to have the greatest appreciation and understanding of the need and value of diversity.

WordPress has few female contributors. How do we attract more amazing contributors like Lorelle VanFossen, Christine Davis, and Jennifer Hodgdon?

For the broader issue, there are successful organizations like Alliance of Technology and Women (ATW) and Women in Technology International (WITI).

Chris Messina asked about the future of white boy clubs. Jason Kottke is counting gender diversity at web conferences this year.

We have a long way to come.

Update 2007-03-23: Today, I read Glenda Bautista’s Agendacide article from yesterday about Jeremiah Owyang’s list of Asian technology speakers

The Moose Converse Again

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Image of purple moose with Northern Voice: the annual blogging conference for everyone held in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

It is sold-out, starts tonight with a fantastic feast, and runs through Satursday. Tomorrow is the unconference Moose Camp and Saturday is the “formal presentations“.

One more sleep for me. Julia and I will take the ferry over first thing in the morning.

If you are going to be there and want to talk WordPress — or anything else, even Flock — say hi to me! I bite, but not too hard.

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