Hi - I'm a CS researcher who does research in groupware and distributed systems. I'm writing because I would like to interview some httpd developers to find out how people in distributed open-source projects manage to stay aware of others on the project. By 'awareness' I mean things like who is on the project, who is the person to talk to for particular issues, who to inform when you want to make a particular change, and so forth.
I've found some surprising things so far talking with some people from the NetBSD project - I'd like to see how things are done here on httpd. There's a longer description of my project below - if you would be willing to talk about your experiences with me, please send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (or reply to this message, or whatever).
Thanks, Carl
======== Group awareness in distributed development projects ==========
It is not obvious how open-source projects manage to coordinate the efforts of numerous developers, all with write access to the code. Although projects are usually partitioned to reduce the people working in any one area, there are still many cases where one person's actions are dependent on, or will affect, another person's work. I am trying to find out how developers stay aware of who's doing what - e.g.:
- who is in charge of (or is currently working on) piece X?
- who should I inform before making a change?
- is anyone already working on change Z?
- is person Y nearly finished their work on change Z?
- how do new developers 'learn the ropes' of who does what on the
project?
- are there situations where work is duplicated or people work at
cross purposes (i.e. where there was inadequate awareness)?I would like to collect information from you about these issues, about other awareness problems, or about how things work on this project. If you would be willing to discuss it further, please contact me at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
======================================================================= -- Carl Gutwin, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science University of Saskatchewan, 57 Campus Drive, Saskatoon SK S7N 5A9 Tel: (306) 966-8646 Fax: (306) 966-4884 WWW: hci.usask.ca
