During a meeting yesterday, I was forced to think about the scene (not entirely safe for work) in Monty Python’s Life of Brian when the protagonist is introduced to the People’s Front of Judea.
In this meeting we were discussing the creation of a new open source foundation. What made me think of this scene from Life of Brain was the notion that creating another new foundation (in this particular context) really felt like the end result would be a division in the community (as the discussion progressed, I decided that my initial judgement was wrong).
In principle, I’m not against the idea of creating a new open source foundation; I am, however, concerned that the people involved need to think it through. Getting a foundation running is a lot of work. Especially when there’s not a lot of money to make it happen. Success tends to fall on the shoulders of the few who do most of the work (90% of the work).
Ultimately, a value calculation needs to be made based on all the information available.
With all the open source organizations out there, its likely that there’s one that you can join that aligns fairly closely in terms of purpose, values, and goals. Finding an organization that aligns with your purpose, values, and goals can be hard work. You might think that it’s just easier to start it up yourself. You may be right, but you’re probably not.
I’ve heard similar arguments when it comes to using open source libraries and frameworks: “Sure, we could try and find a framework that does what we need to do, but that’d take forever; it’s easier just to build it ourselves”. Initially, this may be true, but in the long run, going it yourself is a lot of work.
