Well if I could be so rude as to butt in mid-thread. I am very interested in the parallels between the often undescribed or informal development practices of open source projects and the successful projects themselves that might align with or incorporate agile principles.
In my own research I am seeking to better understand if these principles are indeed in practice even if not formally described (self-organization, incremental development, feedback, etc.) within open source projects; identify specific definitions of these principles (e.g. the difference between transparency and openness, incremental vs. iteration); develop criteria and metrics for assessing the use of agile methods; assess if agile methods can be applied beyond software development, extending into project management, understanding the motivations and barriers to adoption. I would like to offer for your consideration a flow chart I developed trying to determine the causality of agile adoption. http://openmasters.wordpress.com/agile-causality/ Toward my own efforts I see these as chapters in a book and would welcome any thoughts. Thank you, Patrick Patrick Masson Chief Information Officer State University of New York at Delhi 331B Bush Hall, Delhi, New York 13753 Office/Cell/Personal: 970-4MASSON | Skype: massonpj | Fax: 607-746-4300 Email: masso...@delhi.edu | AIM: uclasunydelhi *** IMPORTANT NOTICE *** All email communications with New York State employees, including SUNY Delhi Computer Information Systems, are a matter of public record and subject to publication, and/or release under the Freedom of Information Act. -----tos-boun...@teachingopensource.org wrote: ----- To: Greg DeKoenigsberg <g...@redhat.com> From: Ross Gardler <ross.gard...@oucs.ox.ac.uk> Sent by: tos-boun...@teachingopensource.org Date: 09/10/2009 05:50PM cc: tos <tos@teachingopensource.org> Subject: Re: [TOS] Open/Collaborative development as a focus for the textbook? (Re: First draft of textbook: introductory chapter (foreword?)) 2009/9/10 Greg DeKoenigsberg <g...@redhat.com>: > On Thu, 10 Sep 2009, Ross Gardler wrote: > >> However, there is no formal definition of what open development is. It >> is not described by either the four freedoms or the open definition. >> >> We've been working with some people to define an "open and agile >> development methodology". See draft 2 at >> http://wiki.oss-watch.ac.uk/OpenAndAgileDevelopment - input is most >> welcome. This will, over time, come with a range of supporting >> documents (actually there are already many on our site). >> >>> I guess it appeals because 1. the book has a practical feel (mostly >>> about behavior), and 2. the notion of collaborative software >>> development applies equally well to all software projects, not just >>> open vs. free vs. closed. From the professor's perspective, it helps >>> make it clear that the book is about supporting the teaching of >>> collaborative software development practices (in the context of *OSS >>> tools and projects). >> >> +1 > > I suppose we could come up with yet another term that attempts to describe > the methodology while leaving out the philosophy -- but that was, iirc, the > primary motive behind the creation of the term "open source" in the first > place. I agree. I'm not suggesting the use of a new term. My '+1' was for the observation that the process of development is very important. I see now that my subject was poorly chosen. > To wrap this thread up: Actually, this is a different thread (I changed the subject). I was trying to draw attention to our early stage work in defining an open development or collabortive development methodology and asking if this would be appropriate/useful for the book as a whole. I've responded to the FOSS/FLOSS/Free/Open Source issue in the appropriate thread (for the record I hope my response indicates I am 100% in agreement with the points I snipped here). Ross _______________________________________________ tos mailing list tos@teachingopensource.org http://teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos _______________________________________________ tos mailing list tos@teachingopensource.org http://teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos
