This has been touched on in other threads, but I wonder if it's worth trying to formalise at this stage the basic goals of this project and drawing up the bare bones of a framework of how to get there?
Jamie
Indeed it is … I was holding off for a few days to allow us to set a Stage 1 Review board early next week, and to let the flood waters around to recede a little before continuing.
Hope all other UK residents have dry feet too … -)
Great stuff!
Weather-wise, I'm in Scotland at the moment and this morning is the first time I've seen blue sky for about a month. Dread to think what it's like further south 😯
Jamie
Rules of engagement.
I think that should be the first thing right after we have a list of First Review Board members.
Rules how we make decisions, how we communicate, tie-breakers, final votes, etc.
Is there an electronic community version of Robert's Rules?
@Libertate,
we can try managing a custom work-flow with some kind of Calendar (Google or others); anyway Confluence has some plug-ins for work-flow, if Atlassian is so kind to let us use them… and if they are more than kind, they can give us a licence for Jira a project management tool.
Or… are we targeting a wasp with a F-117 stealth ?
cheers
Rob
We have JIRA as well allready -)
Great! And what about the work-flow plug-ins for Confluence ?
Rob
These are excellent tools nysalsa, but I might not have made myself clear.
It matters not what tool we use, unless we agree ahead of time to have some sort of agreement what constitutes something as draft, in development, final, approved etc.
How are new Board/members to the team invited? what are the prerequisites? How one gets booted? Who/How does the final say so happens? etc. etc.
Confluence, although I am not familiar with, looks very promising as a tool.
We still need to decide who holds the gavel, how it gets used, and when. 😉
Are we conduct ourselves as a democracy with consensus, federation, benevolent dictatorship, etc?
Hey - occupational hazard. I want everything possible ready before the project starts.
… Or … am I missing something?
It matters not what tool we use
Absolutely agree. ASCII and notepad/vi or some fancy tool both work well. It's the expression that's important.
unless we agree ahead of time to have some sort of agreement what constitutes something as draft, in development, final, approved etc.
Well, don't know that I agree so much with this. I'm willing to give time and energy on speculation. If the group doesn't agree with me on an issue, I'm OK with that too. I suspect the collective is smarter then I. As to process I'm OK with working with minimal structure and working out the kinks as we go along,
How are new Board/members to the team invited? what are the prerequisites?
I think Azrael is pretty open to interested parties.
How one gets booted? Who/How does the final say so happens? etc. etc.
No clue. If I'm an impediment, I deserve to get booted and just about anyone can tell me so.
We still need to decide who holds the gavel, how it gets used, and when. 😉
As a practical matter I think Azrael does since he's holding some of the keys to the tools and hosting. Since he's been the leader in this effort, I'm OK with that.
Are we conduct ourselves as a democracy with consensus, federation, benevolent dictatorship, etc?
Don't know. I suspect democracy and consensus are self-contradictory. Don't know how benevolent we need, I suspect crankiness might just keep things moving. Your thoughts?
Hey - occupational hazard. I want everything possible ready before the project starts.
We're late than, cause I think we started when we all posted here. )
First of all, sorry - been away for the weekend … Was cracking up and the Mrs.very kindly let me get away …
Second of all, sorry - I'm not using my Apple, so my magic spell checker isn't working - so my awful spelling may get the better of me here …
It matters not what tool we use
Absolutely agree. ASCII and notepad/vi or some fancy tool both work well. It's the expression that's important.
I agree that it is the expression that is important - buuuut …
We are going to need to work to the lowest common denominator, there is no point of me producing something incredible in Word 2007 if everyone else is in vi …
Shall we agree on plain text with inline references to JPG images where required, that are sent along with it ? I'll be happy to do the conversion to PDF if that is fine by everyone else ?
unless we agree ahead of time to have some sort of agreement what constitutes something as draft, in development, final, approved etc.
Well, don't know that I agree so much with this. I'm willing to give time and energy on speculation. If the group doesn't agree with me on an issue, I'm OK with that too. I suspect the collective is smarter then I. As to process I'm OK with working with minimal structure and working out the kinks as we go along,
I think that I agree with you both - we need to have some sort of framework to work within, otherwise we will go everywhere ! However, I think that we all realise that this is something that no-one has successfully done before, and in order to succeed, I think that some flexibility and inventive thinking will be required. I think more than anything else, we need to set ourselves clear milestones, and try to stick with them.
How are new Board/members to the team invited? what are the prerequisites?
I think Azrael is pretty open to interested parties.
Cash or cheque … -P
Thus far the board has been taken from those who have chosen to participate in discussion, I have made no decision on who is in based on knowledge, qualifications or experience. There are several reasons for this
(a) a desire to participate is the most valuable thing - everything else from forensic skills to writing can be learnt.
(b) the wider the board background, the more likely we are to catch issues of readability and error.
© personal experience has taught me that judging people who you don't know by bits of paper is a big mistake, I know PhDs who can't tie their shoes, and people who don't have a letter after their name who run multi-national corporations …
I have issued 11 invitations, and have issued one to myself to make a board of 12, heck, if it is good enough for the legal system it works for me … I'm still waiting on a number of responses, if people would get back to me I would be most grateful.
As I said above, there is _one_ prerequisite, an interest to be a participant. All people who are interested are welcome to let me know, there will allways be something for you to do, proof read, write, submit work, reformat, take screen shots … We can find something for anyone, and all contributors will be credited appropriately.
How one gets booted? Who/How does the final say so happens? etc. etc.
No clue. If I'm an impediment, I deserve to get booted and just about anyone can tell me so.
Interesting question, I expect attrition to be more of an issue, all of us have a lot of pressure on us from work/family/bills/study. And keeping going with something that _will_ take up time will likely be hard.
If someone is causing more problems than they are solving - I would initially suggest that a quiet word would be best - maybe they just need some time off - failing that then it will need to be a decsion from the rest of the board, and a majority will swing it.
I would suggest politely though that any such quiet word be discussed with one other member of the board at least and any correspondance cc'd to ensure that there is no missunderstanding as to reasoning.
We still need to decide who holds the gavel, how it gets used, and when. 😉
As a practical matter I think Azrael does since he's holding some of the keys to the tools and hosting. Since he's been the leader in this effort, I'm OK with that.
Ah the power of the root password 😉
I sincerely hope that we can all decide things on a majority basis, and that gaveling is rarely, if ever, required. I will, however, set time limits on decisions to be made so that forward momentum isn't lost …
Are we conduct ourselves as a democracy with consensus, federation, benevolent dictatorship, etc?
Don't know. I suspect democracy and consensus are self-contradictory. Don't know how benevolent we need, I suspect crankiness might just keep things moving. Your thoughts?
-P I think that democracy is the way to go. Over time, I would like to see us have an elected board of 12 who make ultimate decisions, for large questions, such as "Should we change licenseing ?" ( I'd like another example here, but I can't think of one … ) I think that we should poll the forum, ask all contributors and the board and go with a genuine democratic vote.
I've been trying to have a look at "Robert's Rules" - I'll get back to you on that bit …
With regard to "work-flow" plugins for Confluence … I don't know, but I'll find out …
Hey - occupational hazard. I want everything possible ready before the project starts.
We're late than, cause I think we started when we all posted here. )
I think we allready started as well, and we are playing a little bit of catch up to get to a position where we can move on more easily. It is a good idea to get some of these things clearly defined as soon as possible - without them they will only cause chaos in the long run.
Right now the state of play as I see it is
(1) The Wiki and JIRA are nearly ready to release usernames and passwords for, if anyone knows anything about the maintenance of these, could they please let me know, and I'd be happy to discuss higher admin rights so that they can help out.
(2) We are waiting for the responses of all the members of the board who have been invited.
(3) People who have signed up have agreed to the CC license … I am actually in an ongoing debate about this with someone who is making some very, very interesting points. He has experience of licensing from another open source forensic project, and has taken legal advice with regard to it, so I am very interested in what he has to say. This is something that I hope to address to the group in a short while when I have all the facts to pass on at my disposal.
(4) I would like to check with the group that there are no objections to the production formats that are detailed above ( e.g. Plain text, jpeg etc. ) and then set these as the standards for everyone.
(5) The next step is to define the deliverables, and the nature of these. e.g. one document, multiple documents etc.
Kind regards to all,
Azrael