This document discusses reasons for conflict in communities and strategies for resolving conflicts. It notes that clashes of personalities, disenfranchisement, and disruptive individuals can all lead to conflict. Specific examples are provided of conflicts that arose in two open source projects due to misunderstandings, disagreements over policies, and perceived undermining of leadership. The document emphasizes the importance of understanding the root causes of conflicts, countering antagonism with evidence rather than labeling people, and focusing on unblocking projects rather than lingering disagreements if a conflict has escalated. Successful resolution requires participant-driven processes, principled negotiation, and restorative justice.

1. Conflict and Resolution
mark.johnson@it.ox.ac.uk
@marxjohnson

2. In this session
Why does conflict happen in a community?
Avoiding Conflict
Resolving Conflict

3. Activity
3 People in your group take a piece of paper from the
envelope, read the instruction but don't tell the rest of
your group.
Throughout the following discussion, stick to your
instruction unless you can be convinced not to.
If you don't have a piece of paper, just be yourself,
and try to work out what is on each person's paper.

4. Activity
Discussion:
Your project is going to start using “codenames” for
releases. Decide on a naming scheme for these code
names.
(e.g. Ubuntu uses “Adjective, Animal”. Fedora's
names must relate to the name of the previous
release. Mac OSX used breeds of big cat, and now
uses places in California)

5. Reasons for conflict
●
Clash of personalities
●
Disenfranchisement
●
Arseholes

6. Clash of personalities
Age
Culture
Opinion
Experience
Personality
Miscommunication

7. Age
Clash of personalities
I remember when all this
was punch cards OMG NOSQL FTW!

8. Culture
Clash of personalities
Let's discuss this over a beer!
Um...

9. Clash of personalities
Opinion
Git is better than Subversion!
Python is bettter than Ruby!
Iron Maiden are better than Metallica!
Meh.

10. Clash of personalities
Personality

11. Clash of personalities
Miscommunication
Let's eat, grandma! Let's eat grandma!
!

12. Disenfranchisement
●
Not listening to everyone's views
●
Putting commercial sponsor's needs first
●
Volunteers vs. Employees

13. “Poisonous People”
●
Someone decides to be intentionally disruptive
●
This other people are convinced, and follow the
pattern
●
This may lead to splits or forks
●
Must be countered with evidence – Don't feed the
troll!
“Arseholes”

14. Resolving Conflict
●
Participant-driven resolution
●
Principled Negotiation
●
Restorative Justice

15. Conflict Example 1
Project Banana
●
Polly stated that, as far as Project Banana is concerned, the
Strawberry Consortium's policy is fine
●
Barry had personal objections, and presented these in a manner that
suggested they represented the official position of Project Banana.
●
Polly felt undermined, Barry questioned her competance as a leader
●
A flame war ensued among Project Banana's board, with some
contributors expressing an intention to leave the project

16. Conflict Example 2
Project Pineapple
●
Project Pineapple is part of the Strawberry Consortium
●
Consortium rules state releases must be voted on
●
As no-one ever voted against a release, Project Pineapple started
releasing without a vote
●
The Strawberry Consortium made it clear this is unnacceptable
●
The Project board accused the Consortium of being too restrictive to
modern practices, in turn the Consortium accused the Project of
being careless
●
How could the conflict have been avoided? How can it be resolved?
Conflict Example 2

17. Summary
●
Conflicts can arise for a number of reasons –
Understanding these is key to avoiding and
diffusing them
●
Dont be quick to label people as poisonous just
because they're antagonistic – counter them with
evidence
●
If a conflict is allowed to escalate, a project can
stall completely. At this point unblocking becomes
the issue, not the original disagreement.

18. Questions?
Resources
•
Bacon, Jono. (2009). Art of Community O'Reilly
•
Fisher, R. and William, U. (1983). Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In
Penguin Books
•
Lambert, J and Myers, S. (1999). 50 Activities for Conflict Resolution – 2 Activities HRD
Press
•
Elliott, M., & Scacchi, W. (2004). Free software development: Cooperation and conflict in a
virtual organizational culture. Free/Open Source Software Development, 152-172.