Skype Conference

[David Bovill]

On 27 October 2010 03:15, Michael Allan <mike at zelea.com> wrote:

> Sorry all for being out the loop, I hope to catch up soon.  I'll just
> reply to David first so I don't hold up his project.
>

No intention of it being my project. I am interested in an open project
which is collaboratively owned, and in which participants agree to work
together on common goals. For my part that means I am prepared to work on
things that other members find would be useful to the general goals of LD,
even if I disagree with the approach, should that be what other people vote
/ decide is the best way forwards.


> We spoke before.  I'm not sure you want me in discussions at this
> stage.


Of course! I'm sure everyone feels it is very important for you to take part
in the discussions? C'mon - it will be good :)


> My current work is focused on theory and prototyping of open,
> general purpose networks.  Those might not be priorities for you.
>

I thought we clarified that with my earlier post. Not just me, but I am
completely sure everyone here on this list is interested in open general
purpose networks. If there is any dissagreement about anything it is how to
get there. I believe and argue as clearly as i can that this is best
achieved by matching the aims with the methodology, that is the project
should be open to more people from more backgrounds, and that it should be
structured in a clear open organisation. I want more openness not less.


> Just quickly: Do you require my help?  At what stages?  In what roles?
>

   1. It would be great to have your help in installing Votorolla on the new
   shared and open hosting platform.
   2. To take discuss how best to integrate Votorolla technically with
   different front ends
   3. To discuss how to scale the backend and ensure good performance
   4. Simply to say hello to new people that I hope I can bring to the
   project and can be of help to all of us in building open distributed general
   purpose LD implementations.

When? Now :) - or at least lets start with a Skype chat?

What roles? Well that's for you to offer really. What I understand from what
has been said before, is that you do not want or need to be paid to work on
a project, and that you see your role as continuing to work as an individual
and not as part of a team subject to team decisions.

That is good and understood. It is a clear position, and many people like to
and demand to work in no other way. However, from a practical perspective,
and as discussed earlier this position makes it impossible to fund raise for
a project in which I can guarantee to a client - say a local authority here,
that we would customise Votorolla to work with a particular group of users.
I can't pitch for a project when it is not certain we have a good developer
to implement it.

If your position has changed on this, that is you can see yourself working
as part of a team to deliver a contract to implement a robust LD
implementation for a community oriented project, then great - let's talk
about it!  Assuming this is not the case, then I can see a clear role, in
which you advise on how we could add to the open source code base for
Votorolla, and advise / mentor any developers we bring into the project.

Please note, I am not suggesting that I lead this project, or that you work
"for" someone. Nor am I assuming that you would lead the project. As i see
it there a several talented people with different things to offer, and it
should be possible to run and agree on decisions in a participatory fashion
based on a partnership with simple group decision making practices / voting.
Also the scope of any such project can easily be limited to delivering an
outcome for a client - after which everyone can go back to their own thing
taking whatever code, assets and experiences were generated by the work (as
these would be open).

I see my role here is, simply to be open and honest about what I see as the
best way forwards to reach common goals. I do believe the best way to do
this is to work together, and that is what I am here to argue for.

I think a good starting point is to have a Skype chat where we can all meet
up and where you can explain how you would see taking Votorolla forwards so
we can avoid duplicating code bases and work. I should also say that I am
arguing strongly for trying to integrate Votorolla in these projects, and
trying to integrate your skills and energy, as I am quite sure it would
deliver exactly what you are looking for. Personally I value people over
code, so if there is anyway this can be done I will argue for it regardless
of the merits of any particular code base.

At the moment, we can't really see how to integrate Votorolla easily into a
well designed web app. What woudl be great is if you could talk us through
how you can see this happening. Dave Woods is a sysadmin by profession, and
we've both tried to figure out how to build on the code base - but as ever
we are leaning towards implementing something ourselves based on a different
and more standardised platform. If there is anyway I can avoid this - I'll
fight / vote for it, for the reasons sited above.

I think it will also help if I outline the nature of the project / users we
are aiming at addressing here in the UK, and I will do that in a separate
email - as this one is getting long in the tooth. So to end up, yes please
take part in the Skype conference, lets talk about how we could integrate
Votorolla into other platforms / front ends?

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