David, I'm not sure what you mean. Do you feel some contributors aren't working together?
Having expectations about what others will do can be considered an implicit transaction too. Long ago an advice columnist I liked for her common sense responded to a questioner upset when she discovered an expensive gift had been given away to someone else by the recipient. The columnist wrote: "A present is something you give away with no expectations about how it will be used. With strings attached, it's not a present, it's something else." Growth can be painful and risky for any organization. Possibly the greatest challenge Sugar Labs will face will be our feelings when funding arrives. Will funding use be fair? Will some feel they are contributing for free while others benefit? We addressed some of these questions at SugarCamp Paris last May, citing Executive Director compensation, travelling and lodging expenses for SugarCamp meetings, and marketing expenses to spread the word. But other uses are certainly candidates for discussion, for example: infrastructure costs, with or without paid admin; a frontoffice staff person doing unfun paperwork; or short-term contracts important to SL which could support core developers. We have to be lucid about how other organizations - FLOSS projects and for-profits such as OEMs alike - will wish to benefit from the success we may have. But, that doesn't preclude partnerships which can advance our education mission. At Bolzano's SFScon I liked Simon Phipps' slide with a crocodile. To paraphrase, he said: "Corporations aren't nice, or have feelings, or remember much of anything. They're just reptiles. It's fine to deal with them, but just don't forget they are reptiles." (http://www.webmink.net/2009/10/reptiles.htm) So we are forewarned. Many NGOs face internal resource allocation struggles, which can be demoralizing for underpaid staff or unpaid volunteers. Credit can be a means of encouragement for some, but can also demoralize the quiet contributor working hard. That said, there is a solution: enlarging the resources. There is room for many more contributors at SL and I and others are wrestling with the problem of where to find and recruit them. A key concept I think is "non-negotiables" - ideas we share and which shouldn't be compromised. Of course, enumerating and agreeing on these may well be difficult. But such principles may be helpful to avoid losing our way, dealing with corporations, recruiting talented contributors, or facing a crisis when funding arrives. Sean On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 8:41 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Over the last couple of months I have been struggling with some of the > shifts in Sugar Labs. My greatest concern has been the increasing emphasis > on transactions over reciprocity. > > Transactions represent the notion that individuals take action with the > expectation that they will be rewarded for their action. Reciprocity is the > idea that if one gives freely, other will be inclined to do likewise. Both > involve acting in one own self interest. > > The problem with transactions is that they tend to cause competition. In > Sugar Labs that competition is for credit, attention and resources. > Transactions involve bookkeeping -- either implicitly or explicitly. > Transactions crowd out reciprocity. > > Reciprocity involves working on the Sugar Labs mission and giving that work > freely to Sugar Labs with the expectation that other will build on your work > to further the mission. > > Maybe it is a growth phase. 1 year ago Sugar Labs had little worth > competing for. 1 year ago participants remembered the fresh wounds of the > OLPC spinoff. 1 year ago conversations were about how can we work together > to make Sugar awesome. > > I hope that Sugar Labs can get back to working together to make Sugar > awesome. > > david > > _______________________________________________ > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > [email protected] > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep > _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
