1. 1 January 16, 2008 1 Open Source Software Communications William Cohen NCSU CSC 591W January 23, 2008

2. 2 January 16, 2008 2 Forms of Communication ● Email ● IRC ● Websites ● Wiki ● Blogs ● Phone ● Face-2-Face

3. 3 January 16, 2008 3 Identity ● People often have several email accounts ● Be consistent in identity used for correspondence: ● Same name used for bug tracker, email, and IRC ● Use identity that is real name if possible ● Avoid fancy title or self-aggrandizing handles

4. 4 January 16, 2008 4 Open Communication ● Minimize private communication ● Allow as many people as possible to comment: ● Unexpected people may have very good insights ● The expected people might not know or be available ● Public material available for future reference: ● Search engines have access material on web (email archives archives, wikis, and web pages) ● Point other people at archive

5. 5 January 16, 2008 5 Politeness ● Avoid “Flame wars” ● Focus on technical discussion and comments ● Avoid commenting about people's character or intelligence ● Hard to determine email tone: ● Something written as sarcasm or humor may be mistaken for disparaging comment ● Thank people for their help

6. 6 January 16, 2008 6 Clarity ● Make your message as clear as possible: ● Have appropriate subject line for email ● Put core thought of email at beginning ● Write in complete sentences ● Avoid slang and texting abreviations: ● Not everyone is a native speaker of English ● Formatting: ● Use quoting appropriately ● Separate sections of email, so it is clear what is text and what is code ● Use plain text ● Do not force people to start up other programs ● Some people filter out html messages

7. 7 January 16, 2008 7 Brevity ● People get huge numbers of mail ● Minimize the amount of material people need to read ● Trim quotes include in replies to relevant sections

8. 8 January 16, 2008 8 Content ● Try to globally save people time ● Separate emails for separate topics ● Make content as convenient as possible: ● Good summary ● Good organization ● Comments below quotes of interest ● Pointers to the appropriate URLs ● Edit email and review email before sending

9. 9 January 16, 2008 9 Timeliness ● You may not be able to respond to email immediately: ● May need to take care of other issues ● Need time to consider the proposals ● Try to respond to email in a reasonable amount of time

10. 10 January 16, 2008 10 Tone ● Often people tend toward terseness ● Avoid hyperbole ● Stick to technical points ● Be encouraging to new posters on mailing list

11. 11 January 16, 2008 11 Pitfalls ● Posting without a purpose ● Productive vs. Unproductive threads ● Softer topics, longer debate ● Holy wars ● “Noisy Minority”

12. 12 January 16, 2008 12 Posting without a purpose ● Why waste people's time with content-free email? ● Nothing to say? Don't say anything. ● Examples when to post: ● Have question or proposal ● Comment about flaw in proposal ● Miscommunication between others

13. 13 January 16, 2008 13 Productive vs. Unproductive threads ● Unproductive thread characteristics: ● Repeated arguments ● Increasing hyperbole ● People commenting are not ones actively working on things ● Thread getting more diffuse rather than more concrete ● Some ideas start as imprecise thought: ● Try to summarize and distill the important points ● Some unproductive threads should just be left to die

14. 14 January 16, 2008 14 Softer topics, longer debate ● More technical topics, fewer people may feel qualified to comment ● Less technical topics, greater people may have opinion on ● People may not have strong opinions on things ● People implementing idea should have more say in topic

15. 15 January 16, 2008 15 “Holy wars” ● People have strong personal opinions on some things ● Realize that futile to try to change people's opinion ● Example: ● vi vs. emacs ● Favorite programming languages ● Avoid being draw into holy war discussion

16. 16 January 16, 2008 16 “Noisy Minority” ● Some people may be very vocal about some issues ● Amount of email may not indicate number of people that care

17. 17 January 16, 2008 17 Handling Growth ● Successful projects grow ● Information to get people started: ● Web pages ● Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) ● HOWTOs ● Wikis ● Archives ● Segmenting mailing lists IRC channels: ● Group by activities, e.g. Development, QA, help

18. 18 January 16, 2008 18 Web Pages ● Often the first place where people look for information about project: ● Information clearing house for the project ● Links to other things related to the project

19. 19 January 16, 2008 19 FAQs ● Questions that come up repeatedly ● Usually introductory material ● Quick reference to save time: ● Allow people to look before they post question ● Allow people to point to answering question ● Describe how to post effective email

20. 20 January 16, 2008 20 HOWTO ● Cookbook/recipe to accomplish specific task ● Usually aimed at non-experts ● Try to minimize unneeded details

21. 21 January 16, 2008 21 Wiki ● Collaborative web pages ● Pros: ● Uses very simple markup language ● Very low barrier to entry: ● User registers on wiki ● Makes additions ● No review or vetting of material in many cases ● Quick to update ● Cons: ● Little editorial review ● Potential for poor organization

22. 22 January 16, 2008 22 Archives ● Often issues have encountered before ● Can range from very simple to very technical material ● Searchable ● Provides background information for new people (and refresh memory of old people :)