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List:       mifos-developer
Subject:    Re: [Mifos-developer] VIDEO: Saving Open Source Communities with
From:       Keith Woodlock <keithwoodlock () gmail ! com>
Date:       2011-08-07 17:38:50
Message-ID: CAHngcekOb-svOOZ4u1Wes-xBeuF9dsDpk1GYocewSaMi55u1nA () mail ! gmail ! com
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Ed,

Its an interesting challenge to better understand and improve the
'contributor experience'.

> What do you think? What are the areas where the transaction costs are
> highest for participating or using Mifos?

In terms of participation, the obvious one is the implementation of
mifos, but maybe its not the real problem?

Mifos is a java application, there are lots of open source java
developers, we use the typical tools that java developers use and
still participation in mifos is low. Every now and then we see
introductions to the list of people willing to get involved yet this
rarely translates to 'active' development/participation. Maybe we are
failing at this point, failing to make it 'easy' to get up and running
to let people add 'value'.

Source of this problem could be: out of date/inaccurate information on
wiki around setup? better presentation of how to get setup? failing to
'put an arm' around new entrants to guide them past 'pain points'?

For people that are setup and wanting to be active:

One big difference betweeen Mozilla and Mifos is that developers on
mifos don't get to 'eat their own dog food'. We dont use the product
ourselves on a day to day basis and have minimal contact with those
that do.

People who get setup technically, still need to become aware of the
business domain to better understand what to do? We need to do a
better job of getting information around what the 'users' want and
describing it in a clear way for developers to have any chance of
adding something of value.

I am sure theres lots more to say on this from others, i dont think
theres any data to lead the dicussion so people will have to rely on
what they feel is wrong (which may be close to the truth).

Keith.

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 11:19 PM, Ed Cable <edcable@gmail.com> wrote:
> I came across a video that users and contributors across our community would
> both be interested in.
> At this year's OSCON, David Eaves, a big open data advocate discusses the
> need to reduce the transaction costs of participating in open source
> projects.  This is something we continue to work on with Mifos from making
> the download and install process easier to reducing the barriers for new
> volunteers to contribute.
> http://bit.ly/pYrLDM
> He advocates that the more data we have on the overall experience of
> participants in open source projects, the more we can reduce friction and
> the better we can respond and attend to the needs of users and contributors.
> What do you think? What are the areas where the transaction costs are
> highest for participating or using Mifos?
> David is working on the Mozilla Dashboards project that we took a closer
> look at in this recent newslog post about Building a Better Community
> Experience:
> http://mifos.org/community/news/building-better-community-experience
> Ed
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> BlackBerry&reg; DevCon Americas, Oct. 18-20, San Francisco, CA
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>

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BlackBerry&reg; DevCon Americas, Oct. 18-20, San Francisco, CA
The must-attend event for mobile developers. Connect with experts. 
Get tools for creating Super Apps. See the latest technologies.
Sessions, hands-on labs, demos & much more. Register early & save!
http://p.sf.net/sfu/rim-blackberry-1

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