Draft of my reply, I appreciate any comments you have.

Ken

On Fri, 2006-03-17 at 20:50 +0100, stéphane ducasse wrote:
> 
> Hi Ken
> 
> I would like to know then if you have ideas how we could
> 	- influence the dev or fixes of certain parts of squeak
> 	- pushing so that something get done because pilling money even if  
> this is not a lot
> 	is not good either (like in the army I would like to be able to say  
> that we spent
> 	everything and that we need more :)
> 
> Stef
> >
> > Ken
> >

Well, this may put me in the context of a 'laissez-faire' open-source
developer (leave well enough alone and let it take it's own course), but
I'm not of the opinion that it's possible to 'influence'
or 'push' for further development within the community on anything other
than a narrow or short-term basis.  In the end people are only going to
work on something that provides some form of return.

Now of course you and others have offered bounties as such a form.  I
think bounties represent a wholly artificial form of return that, even
if succesful, cannot be self-sustaining.  What I mean is that a bounty
is a form of coercion meant to influence the current path of development
in a direction for which there is not otherwise sufficient interest for
the development to occur without said bounty, then when the bounty ends
development will falter.  At worst this could result in pushing Squeak
in a direction so far away from where the community, as a whole, wants
to be that it kills the community.

So what else can we do:

Other forms of return include acquiring fame and of course the best form
is meeting a personal need.

In the fame category we have:

Individually, we can 'lead from the front'. In other words, lead by
doing and hope that a sufficient number of others follow our example.
The 'followers' gain fame here by being associated with someone or some
project they either personally esteem or they perceive as being esteemed
by others.  If they don't follow maybe that simply means that no one
else cares for where you appear to be going.  You might then consider
whether you have properly communicated your intentions.

We can make more of an effort to congratulate progress and encourage the
efforts of others.  This demonstrates to the developer that his actions
are noticed and appreciated.
 
In the need category:

We can listen to the needs that the individuals have in our community
and encourage development targeting those needs.  This one straddles
both categories because it encourages the one to participate in the
community by showing that their needs can be met and encourages the
other by providing something they can do to acquire recognition.

We can remind those that express a need that their need would most
quickly be met if they participate in the development required.

These are all small things that can only affect small parts of the
community over short periods of time.  However a lot of small things can
add up to a big thing.

Ultimately I think we can only do 2 things:

1.  Work on what we as individuals think is important and individually
influence our cohorts to participate in that work.

2.  Encourage and reward the work that others are doing that they find
important.

Anything else, if effective, artificially move the community away from
where it would have naturally gone, so it is very unlikely to be
self-sustaining.  Otherwise, it's simply a waste, not having acheived
anything.

Ken
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