David Reid has an interesting piece on his website about the zealotry inherent in online communities.

For the most part I disagree with the article, although I respect the passion with which it was written.

I thought it prudent to go through some of the points of contention one by one.

".... When I started promoting the concept for BeClan I kept using the term “community” in relation to users and developers of BeOS/Zeta. In hindsight that might have been a mistake!"

This is not so much a mistake, as it is a mis-labelling of a service that is itself a part of the larger BeOS Community. A term that might best describe BeClan would be as a "Developer Co-Op" that caters to specific projects. Choosing an appropriate slogan is not my decision to make, so I only express my own opinion on possible slogans for BeClan.

I realize that there are often-times communities within larger communities, despite best efforts. I am not saying one should never use the word Community liberally, but I would warn that to consociate what is essentially a set of services with a virtual relationship would only blur the true value of these services.

".... Like all zealots change of any kind is undesirable and unwelcome, to be greeted with criticism and derision. Look at any site that caters to BeOS/Zeta news and you’ll see many such people (sadly this is especially true at TBJ)."

I don't know what this point is trying to say. Speaking on behalf of The BeOSJournal, I would welcome a separate discussion of it, in private or public, if the author is willing.

".... Another trait that seems to affect almost all developers for BeOS/Zeta is a remarkable desire to work alone and in secrecy. Even now people are starting applications and working on them alone, revealing nothing but an occasional screenshot and rejecting all efforts to contribute! Are these really the actions of sane developers?"

Alone and in secrecy? I can understand alone, because the fact is, there are not many active developers left. But secrecy? Maybe the author is just not in the loop, as it were. There are a number of projects that are being worked on in "secret", but they have active input from the community through various channels such as BeShare, IRC, the mailing lists, and private email, not to mention a few active websites promoting their work.

Are these traits inherently different amongst BeOS Developers compared to, say for example, Linux Developers? What often starts as a brilliant flash of insight, idea, or just a need to scratch an itch is often-times started in secret, because the idea may not be fully fleshed out yet. It is no fault of the individual for wanting to keep a good idea secret for a short while, until s/he finds competant, willing and compatible partners with which to extend the idea further. It is usually by this time by which we hear about the idea in the form of a new project announcement. This is just the natural course of things as ideas evolve into usable projects.

Rejection of contributions might not be any fault of the contributor, as it may cause an overlapping of purpose for which the desire to keep redundancy in check may not be immediately apparent to anyone outside the project. I partially agree with the spirit of this point, in that tact and courtesy are sometimes lacking in the response(s) of some developers. We are all human after all. Hopefully as a common courtesy to everyone, as a group we will endeavor to communicate more clearly in the future.

I might add that it speaks well of our efforts to continue the BeOS that there are people still starting new and exciting projects.

".... only BeOS/Zeta developers seem unwilling, with rare exceptions, to even try and get involved (the Apache httpd server and PgSQL prove this to be the case)."

As already stated, both by the author, and myself, there are not many active developers left. Highlighting two large projects that are the Apache and PgSQL projects as example of reluctance by developers to get involved is not entirely fair to everyone involved. It is at this time not prudent to divert energy from the main focus of re-creating the BeOS in the form of OpenBeOS, nor does it do justice to the scope and complexity of projects such as Apache and PgSQL to say that it only takes a couple of developers to not only port these large projects, but to maintain them as well.

".... BeClan was an effort to try and create a “community” where people would work in a co-operative manner, hopefully shedding the reluctance to work in groups in the bright light of day rather than lone and in the dark. I always knew it would be a long, slow road, but rarely in my nightmares did I realise quite how slow it would be!"

Pretty melodramatic, if I must say. Nightmares? Building a website, let alone helping a community grow, is a long, hard process, but well worth the efforts. The efforts by which BeClan was created are what I will question, and have questioned for some time. The idea is grand and a fine idea, taken by itself. When one tries to recall the efforts that BeClan took to market itself however, it falls short. The BeOSJournal has referenced BeClan only three times, BeGroovy only mentions them once, and IsComputerOn has a number of news items mentioning them as well, but each and every posting was picked up on by the respective websites after the fact.

".... Part of the problem no doubt lies with the way that BeClan is setup and so I’m hopeful that steps can be taken to correct these issues before too much longer (more information on this soon)."

I agree with this point. Until now, there has not been a cohesive effort on the part of BeClan to fill a niche, or to differentiate themselves as a valuable service not duplicated elsewhere. I sincerely hope that the individuals involved with BeClans' management decisions realize the full value of their idea and act accordingly to fulfill it.

A small disclaimer, for the various pundits out there. ;) I am not out to hinder, hurt, harm, insult, slander, upset or attack anyone involved with BeClan, including David Reid, the author of the article in question. I deeply respect David Reid and his efforts in our beloved community, so please take my commentary with a huge block of salt. :)

I am not finished with this particular article, and would like to continue it along the same lines in a future continuation, so for now I will finish with this part and invite feedback from the community.

Sincerely,
Chris Simmons.