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SourceTree Commons Newsletter

Posted July 21st, 2007 by Mickki Langston

SourceTree Commons News

July 21, 2007

Sourcetree Commons Logo
(You can view this newsletter on our website at http://www.sourcetreecommons.org/node/105)

Greetings, SourceTree Commoners!

We're in the process of wrapping up the first Treehouse Build, which began on July 10th. Those of us remaining at the house will be packing up and going home tomorrow morning. This newsletter is an attempt to share some of the amazing work and developments that emerged out of these two weeks, as well as provide information about how we can all continue the momentum.

Ground We Covered

The first week focused primarily on designing community and organizational aspects of the commons. 'What are we doing and how?' was theme of many conversations. Work sessions included the following:
  • STC - What is it and why?
  • What does it mean to have STC be a gift economy
  • How do we provide for talent brokers to find talent and manage projects?
  • Dimensions of Participation & User Levels
  • Dimensions of Incentives and their connection to metrics & reputation
  • STC Revenue & Business Model
  • STC Marketing and Messaging
  • SourceTree Pledge (contributors and stewards)
  • Gift Economy Network (www.gifteconomy.net)
  • Governance & Collaborative Decision-Making Tools
  • Dynamic Alignment Tool
  • Guilds & Certification Authorities
  • Desired Social Networking Tools for STC
  • Site Metrics & Reputation Indicators
  • What is Distributed and How?
  • Organizational Model - Can STC be a co-op?
The last half of the Build has been Geek Week. We had a total of 6 developers working to learn about Congo (the database engine we're using to build SourceTree) and work has already begun to create wrappers for Ruby and Perl for Congo. The geeky work sessions included the following:
  • STC Tech Overview
  • Congo Security Plug-in Framework
  • Building Mockup Screens
  • Iconic Tools, Site Styling, Look & Feel
  • Site & Reputation Metrics - Deeper into details and formulas
  • Managing Congo Jungles (distributed DB controllers)
  • Project Management Tool Planning
  • What defines "code families" in the STC genealogy?
  • Widget planning and design
  • Writing Ruby bindings for Congo
You can see some notes and documentation from these sessions on the Event Documentation section of our web site. This isn't complete, so any additions or changes will be greatly appreciated.

And if you like, you can view more photos from the Build on my flickr page.

Some Noteworthy Accomplishments 

  • Clarity: We know more about what we're building and how we plan to do it. This includes how to structure the organization, defining levels of participation, designing the feedback and rating systems, and much much more about the actual technology platform and how we'll build it. 

  • Improved web site: The SourceTree Commons web site now has groups and projects functionality, a new navigation structure, and better developed content. We had an awesome designer attend who created a 'theme' for the site, which everyone here loved and we still need to deploy. There's still a lot of work left to make the web site fully functional and informative, but we're off to a great start. 

  • Expanded Circle of Participation: We have more people more closely involved in the design and implementation of the vision of SourceTree Commons. This is vital to having SourceTree Commons become a reality.

Unexpected Insights

  • Mike B is very quotable
  • A little nudity adds levity
  • People are much more generous than we think (17 people giving more than 1,000 hours in service of building cool geeky software tools and creating community)
  • Chocolate cake and ice cream make an excellent breakfastChocolate animated gif
  • Congo is easier to explain than we first thought
  • Having a little cynical-fatalism in the group is a fine way to temper the soft-hippies
  • Popsicles are AWESOME in the hot-tub
  • David can toss pizza dough!
  • Bears can open doors to get to people food
  • It takes more conversation than you think for a group of people to create substance out of vision
  • Brandon is a serious gamer geek
  • It's easier to share our deepest commitments and soul than we imagine
  • 17 people can live in one house without killing each other (even if there were a few close calls!)
  • Two weeks without a cell phone is actually kind of cool

Next Steps

Group photoThe primary focus of the next few weeks will be to build and prototype the platform and tools for SourceTree Commons. There is a bit of a competition afoot.  Alex is jumping in and building a first cut on Ruby on Rails. Mike, Jim and David are building a CongoCMS leveraging Nango widgets.  To support the distributed model that we want to have for STC, they would both use Congo as a back-end database.  

The outcome of this will replace Drupal as our content management software and become the platform on which we start adding our reputation/feedback and collaborative decision-making tools.

There are several exciting opportunities for participation. This is, after all, open source - which means that the work of many will contribute to the value and success of this project.

Here's a list of areas needing immediate work. You can get started now by contacting the person listed for each domain. 
CongoCMS (Lethal) Development Ruby on Rails Development Help needed from Non-Programmers
  • Help build the bridges between the YUI widgets and Nango widget classes
  • Build the Nango widget classes
  • Build the translation mechanisms to other interface channels such as xml, taf, gtk
  • Document widgets and classes
  • Build demo application
  • Build RAD tools to help others build widgets
Contact Arthur to get started on CongoCMS development
  • Build Ruby Bindings to the Congo client library libkasai.  We've already created C wrappers for all of the libkasai data types and functions, but now we need to be able to have Ruby objects bridge to congo objects for data queries and commits.  

Brandon S was starting this process, so please connect with him to see how you can help.
  • Help document the decisions and processes that came out of our planning sessions at the retreat.
  • Help flesh out the web site content that will be needed for people to start to come participate.
  • Refine the work flow of the web site, ensure its very easy for people to find what they need
  • Write executive summary and/or concept papers
  • Help generate funding for community infrastructure development
Contact Mickki to coordinate in this area

Upcoming Events

We are scheming to have our next Treehouse Build near the first weekend of October. Save the date now for our launch event where work will continue in the following areas:
  • Platform testing and bug fixing
  • Technical and user documentation
  • User content and help
  • Community building strategy
  • Launch strategy and announcement
This event will be the push to ensure that SourceTree Commons is ready for public viewing and use by October 31, and we have much more work to accomplish over the following 10 weeks to prepare for this.

If you would like to get involved, we'd love to have your contribution and support. Please go to our web site and join in the planning and scheming that will develop over the next couple of weeks.

Acknowledgments

I am full of gratitude for the individuals who contributed their ideas, time and resources to make this event something magical. I am honored to be a part of creating this community, and to work with such generous people.

Thanks to the folks who joined us at the Tao of Pow: Arthur Brock, Mike Buland, David Braden IV and David Braden V, Alex Malinovich, Gerry Gleason, Jim Ruberto, Michael Maranda, Brandon Sanders, Aaron Silverstein, Lauren Lydon, Amy Buland, Nancy Peterson, Glenda Walden, Kachina Z, Adam Apollo, and his lovely friend Heather.

Thanks to the people who contributed other resources (time, money, food) for the event: Ted Ernst, Bill Fulton, Brandon Sanders, Emerging Futures Network, David Braden IV, Jim Ruberto, Mike Buland, Ruth Ruberto, Eric S, Nancy Peterson, John Connell, Mark McDonough, Craig Janelli, Kachina Z, Nicholas Bentley, Nancy Peterson and The Geek Gene.

And a very special thanks to our friends, family and loved ones who made it possible for us to spend this time together.

I think I've gone on quite enough. I hope this finds you all well and happy, and until next time, remember this:

"We don't accomplish anything in this world alone ... and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something." ~ Sandra Day O'Connor

In community,

Mickki Langston
~Open Sourceress~

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