> I would argue that a community is made up through a cycle of value. I > think that a cycle of value limited to developers 'scratching an itch' > is too restrictive. > > Instead the interesting things start happening when you introduce users > into that cycle. In particular you start to see much more discussion > around competence development by the end-user. This leads to closer > involvement in the development of functional requirements, input into > product positioning and promotion, and interestingly, professional > network development linking users-with-other-users and > users-with-developers.
I definately agree with this point of view. At the risk of creating a circular argument, though, "value" depends on what is meant by "community". If by "community" you mean only the contributors to the project, then what is valuable to this community is certainly different from what would be valuable if users were also thought of as part of the community. So, determining what value is depends on what you mean by "community". Maybe that's the major point that needs to be cleared up first. If you decide that users are indeed an important part of the community, then I would highly recommend that Steve be part of the process, since, as far as I've seen, he is very concerned about the users, more than anybody else I've seen. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
