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- Sourcetree Commons: Geeking our way to a better world
Sourcetree Commons: Geeking our way to a better world
Voting Summary (Elevator Pitch):
To develop better social software, we must use these very tools in the communities that are building them. We leverage social software to amplify the creative power of geeks and provide increased resources, efficiency, feedback and support.
Supporting organization:
The Geek Gene, LLC
URL:
http://www.sourcetreecommons.org
City:
Lakewood
State/Region:
Colorado
Country:
USA
Project Vision Statement & Potential Social Impact:
Our goal is to leverage social software to amplify the creative power of geeks.
Geeks are a force to be reckoned with. They are creating the tools to strengthen communities, share ideas and shape information flow in an information age. Yet we still struggle with old ways of competing, collaborating and decision making. If we are to develop better social software, we must incorporate the very principles of collaboration and collective intelligence into the communities that are building them.
We see a place where developers are supported in doing what they do best - an online community with tools to support development, leadership, project management, decision making and conflict resolution. This community fosters in a context of creativity and openness.
Open source software is a geek’s gift to the world and giving is the very heart of community. We are building the tools to let these geeks enjoy the full benefits of a gift economy where full and free participation is acknowledged in your reputation, performance and feedback metrics. Our challenge is to create such a powerful culture of sharing and mutual reward that developers experience abundant connection and support.
Ideas beget ideas. If you watch the creative process, you can trace the evolutionary trees of concepts. Software development follows the same principle.
What if we tracked genealogies of code across projects? Projects could remain part of a family of software even when they fork to meet new needs. Each family could share modules in common which comply with their backbone API. Projects departing from the core standards then start new families with new standards. This approach allows for maximum reuse of code and prevents the duplication of effort.
Expanding our conception of a sourcetree beyond the code for a single project to the whole evolutionary tree of projects which it is related to allows us to see software from a whole new level. Each tree can have shared object repositories, clearer standards and APIs and better interoperability. We can encourage projects to branch into new directions, yet not lose the value of people’s work in another branch.
All of this is built on an open platform, which can be hosted and managed in a distributed manner, yet still provide searchable metadata across all projects. But it is more than a place to share code and manage projects, the social software also transforms it into a community of partnership and support.
Sustainability (financial) model:
- A thriving gift economy: Infrastructure is open source and its ongoing development and maintenance is supported via TreeHouse events (Code-a-thons with free food and lodging)
- Corporate sponsorship for Code-a-thon food & lodging
- Citizenship revenue: Anyone can post projects and download for free, but citizenship (which carries a reputation and allows you to participate in various rewards) requires a one-time validation of your identity through a verfyable financial transaction (membership fee + optionsl donation)
- Alternative currencies for acknowledging impact and rewarding participation
- Corporate sponsorship for hosting branches of the codebase & infrastructure
- Add-on services: project management tools, time-tracking, project currencies,
- Freelance project connections - charge for posting jobs to the community
Potential obstacles:
People: The project relys on volunteers to develop the Source Tree Commons and expand its capacities.
Resources: Need sponsorships for servers, bandwidth and meeting space for code-a-thon events.
Resource Needs:
- Technical Infrastructure – Servers & bandwidth
- Geeks – Development of Sourcetree Commons infrastructure and tools
- Organizational Development – Marketing, Community Development
- Sponsorship of SourceTreeHouse events – Lodging, food, travel
Key Milestones:
Some Milestones accomplished:
- Strategic planning sessions at Recent Changes Camp 2007
- Design and development of distributed data architecture (Congo-DB)
- Design and development of reputation and feedback currency tools to acknowledge and reward participation
- Created partnership with Open Source Guild
- Strategic planning sessions
- Acquired corporate sponsorship for lodging at first TreeHouse Code-a-thon
Some Milestones in the near future:
- SourceTreeHouse Build – week long code-a-thon to develop initial toolset and generate community participation. Develop marketing/sponsorship strategies and feedback and reputation metrics. (3rd week of June) (minimum 12 participants)
- Pre-launch TreeHouse event – testing, bug fixes, documentation, marketing, user content and help, launch strategy and announcement (90 days from initial Build event – October 1st?) (added 20 more participants; minimum 25 participants at Pre-launch event)
- Sourcetree Commons Launch – ready for use by geeks and larger community participation (October 31st)
- By December 31st, community has a minimum of 100 open source projects and 1,000 users
- Sourcetree Commons 2.0 Build – add extensions and APIs, handle bug fixes, other enhancements and improvements (per community feedback) (February 15th, 2008)
Project Summary:
Projects as Living Entities...
What if we recognized that OSS projects exist to fill niches in our technological ecosystem? Sometimes software “mates” with other software to produce offspring which solves different problems than the projects they grew out of. Some species of software can viably mix with others because they share certain core (genetic) patterns such as running on the same operating system, or speaking to the same databases, or complying with certain APIs.
What if we tracked and managed software in service to the niches it fills instead of serving our egos? What if projects could fork to meet new needs, but still remain a part of a family of software with the ability to share modules in common which comply with their backbone API? Projects departing from the core standards start new families with new standards. We track genealogies of code - Sourcetrees which span across projects and contain their evolutionary roots and relationships with other projects.
All of this inside of a community with collaborative decision-making tools, reputation ratings and feedback which build partnership and acknowledge contribution. The social software tools to support self-governing projects in a self-governing community.
Comments
Awesome idea
I've been aware of this project for a while, through conversations with Michael Maranda, and I think it's a great initiative. I'll list a few questions below; hopefully this'll start a dialog on the project.
What are the social networking aspects of the project? Are there ways to use this as a training / development resource for aspiring coders, either through a mentorship system or through a structured codesharing?
Why a distributed db system (as opposed to say, centralized and load-balanced MySQL)?
I'm working with Grassroots.org to develop a collection of integrated tools for nonprofits: Grassroots Nonprofit Toolbox. The idea is to offer emerging technology tools (including Drupal-based CMS, EGroupware, Democracy In Action's Salsa platform, and telephone search engine optimization consultations) to every nonprofit, everywhere in the world, for free.
I'll list your project as one of my personal picks in the emails I'm sending out this week :) If you like the GR project, of course, we'd appreciate the same in return.
Good luck with the project! I'll definitely keep my eye on it as it develops.
why a distributed db?
Think of Sourcetree Commons less as a site or set of repositories hosted 'elsewhere'. Sourcetree is intended to evolve as a set of APIs... that allow us to do our work better together, and in the sense of the Gift Economy, we can extend the capacity of the commons by joining it and directing resources to it.
Sourcetree Commons is being designed on a distributed database system mirrors many aspects of the design of the Internet.
-MM
President, AFCN
Co-Founder, Chicago Digital Access Alliance
Blogger, http://wrythings.net
Social Networking applications of Sourcetree Commons
I'll take a stab at this (thanks for the prompt Dave!)... as I know Arthur Brock is traveling at the moment... (isnt that a social networking application?)
Geek Gene is the most radical development shop I know... they push the envelope on everything they do. It's all open source. A lot of the work they do tracks flows... including reputation systems. Sourcetree commons would have multiple reputation modalities that track flows and are connected to work and community involvement.
We're not just looking at linking code-objects, but a community of developers. That's what is missing for Source Forge (was listening to Ward Cunningham on a podcast on this issue just yesterday).
You also hit the nail on the head with the potential for mentorship and professional development.
Sourcetree Commons was conceptualized to some degree in connection with OGuild an open source group established at recent changes camp. The only point of this mention is the idea that community and tool go together.
-MM
President, AFCN
Co-Founder, Chicago Digital Access Alliance
Blogger, http://wrythings.net