been quiet

[Daniel Chudnov <daniel.chudnov@yale.edu>]

Now that we're all settled back into work after that rockin' Chicago ALA
or coming back from vacation I'm hoping to prod a few folks into making
some noise.  Here are a few friendly talking points amongst those of you
hacking on or working with free software in libraries.  While I mention a
few specific projects this is general advice for everyone, and it's all
stuff that is quickly learned from the big boys and can help you make your
project get better faster.


1) Keep us posted about what you're doing!  I had no idea how much work
was going into OSCR, for instance, because I'm not on the list and as far
as I can tell nobody on the project is broadcasting regular upgrade
announcements.  Post news to freshmeat (this is _very_ important).  Post
to oss4lib.org or oss4lib-list.  Or diglib-l or web4lib or whatever you
can find.

Of course I might just not be on the right lists but I'm on a hell of a
lot of em and follow fm pretty damn closely.  Be visible!  Post dates on
news items on your sites.  Put up a web archive of your listserv so we can
get a sense of the traffic there.  Keep all your old releases in a dir
somewhere along with the new ones.  When someone explores an open source
project, they want to get a rhythm off it, see who's involved, see how the
traffic and updates flow.

If you want to learn how to do all this from the best, join some of the
gnome lists for a week or two.  These folks kick ass for you and me both
(even if you don't use gnome today... you might someday and you'll see
what I mean), and they're remarkably polite, generous with praise,
informative in a useful way, and clearly having fun.  Do what they do.


2) If you haven't done it yet, read The Cathedral and the Bazaar (the
essay, not the whole book if you don't want to :).  Do what ESR says.  
He's right about just about all of it.  It works.  Trust the method and
live by it.


3) Keep moving forward.  Even if you're on a project with huge scope and
lots of pieces, and you're overwhelmed 'cuz the new semester means oh man
I gotta do that update and this debug and teach those people when not to
open attachments, bite off a tiny little piece and spend a few minutes 
here and there making that better.  Stay in touch with the big picture but
do something to keep some of the details fresh in your head.


4) Don't worry about the tools.  Which language?  Which database?  It
doesn't matter!  Just move ahead in whatever you're familiar with.  If it
won't work for others or it doesn't scale or whatever, then make a switch.
It'll be easier to switch then than worrying about getting it right up
front because you'll know _exactly_ why you need a different
tool/db/library/etc. and your reasoning will be based on experience, not
preferences.  The only reason to hold yourself up up front is if you're
using tools that aren't licensed as free/open software.  Think hard about
getting yourself stuck, but if that's still the easiest way to build a
prototype, get started and you'll have something to build toward when
you're ready to port and scale up.



Okay, so if you haven't guessed yet this is just me giving myself a pep
talk because I've forgotten all these things and need to get back to doing
them.  If this had been an actual advisory you would have been given
original thoughts. :)

  -Dan