[advocacy-discuss] The OpenSolaris "Attitude"

[Jim Grisanzio]

S h i v wrote:
> On 9/22/07, Jim Grisanzio <Jim.Grisanzio at sun.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>> However, I would hope that the brand reflects the culture and grows
>> /from/ the culture, not the other way around. That's why I think we can
>> have the culture and attitude conversation separate from the brand
>> issue.
> 
> I see considerable coherence across projects due to the one-point stop
> opensolaris.org. The pace & variety of things in various communities &
> projects is just amazing.

I agree. We are making progress within some projects and a great deal of 
activity is taking place around advocacy, too. In other places, though, 
we still need to move things along.

> But to articulate it into culture, somethings are(for me atleast) are
> hazy/unclear. 

It is, I agree. It may be that we have not developed a clear culture 
yet. I don't know.

> Too many things happening around Indiana. Probably it
> will have some influence on how things are perceived by ppl at large.

Do you see Indiana helping in this area? Sure, a lot of things are going 
on, but that's to be expected since we are creating something new. I 
view it as an excellent consolidating factor. Something to gather 
around. Something for large numbers of people to center around and 
evangelize.

> Many things are going right on the technology/project front.
> But the things seem to be controlled to a considerable degree and
> barriers to entry for external ppl/org needs further lowering.

Many of us are aware of the barriers and we've been working to lower 
them to generate more participation all around -- inside Sun and outside 
Sun. I've come to believe that some of this is unavoidable in the short 
term. In other words, it just takes time and it has to work itself out. 
I will say this, though, I realize *much more clearly* the barriers 
since I moved from Menlo Park to Tokyo. :)

Some other questions for conversation:

* How are we doing with respect to leadership? I know some are not happy 
with the leadership on OpenSolaris. I disagree with that view. I 've 
come to believe that the leadership in this community is extremely 
diversified and distributed among many people. Thus, it's difficult to 
quantify. There simply is no /single/ leader, in other words. That's 
just my view, though. Regardless, leadership is critical to culture and 
I'm wonder how people feel about it in that context.

* Are the User Groups growing to expectations? Some at Sun want to see 
many more but I have zero resources. Any suggestions on how to grow more 
of a UG community? I think we are doing pretty well in that our user 
groups are now "projects" so they have been elevated in status on the site.

* Are there individual cultures growing within the UGs? I see a few 
really, really active groups but many not so active groups. I know it's 
difficult to manage UGs locally. It seems to be a wild mix and I'm 
coming to believe that this is normal.

Again, I'm still digging for the guts of the community here.

Jim
-- 
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris