The document discusses the advantages and disadvantages of working in a virtual community, highlighting benefits like flexibility and global collaboration while noting challenges such as isolation and communication barriers. It outlines the essential personal requirements for success in this environment, including skills in communication and self-motivation. Additionally, it presents various collaboration tools and emphasizes the importance of trust and communication in remote teamwork.

1. Working in a Virtual Community
Lenz Grimmer <lenz@grimmer.com>
<
http://lenzg.net/
2009-09-17 | openSUSE Conference 09 | Nuremberg, DE

2. $ whoami
1998 2002
2008 2010?

3. MySQL AB, Jan 2008

4. Advantages
● Contribute from anywhere
● Setting your own work schedule
● Time zone coverage
● Less distractions

5. Personal Requirements
● Skills
● Communication
● Language (English)
● System administration
● Self-motivation
● Working in isolation
● Fast/reliable Internet connection

6. Disadvantages
● Work/life balance
● Isolation
● Time zone differences
● Communication overhead
● Decision making processes

7. Language / Culture Barriers

8. Passion and Disagreement

9. Social Aspects
● Trust
● Leadership
● Mission and Culture
● Open & direct communication

10. Collaboration

11. Collaboration Tools
● Mailing lists / Forums / Archives
● Wikis / Documentation
● Public / Shared Calendar
● IRC / Chat (AIM, ICQ, Jabber, etc.)
● Skype / VoIP (Asterisk)
● Social Networks / (Micro-) Blogs
● News aggregators

12. Collaboration Tools (2)
● Public Issue/Feature Trackers
● Automated builds / Continous Integration
● Downloadable snapshot builds
● DVCS (Bazaar, git, Mercurial)
● Source Code Browsers / Cross References

13. Meetings & Conferences

14. Travel

15. $ cat /etc/motd

16. Questions / Discussion
Thank you!
Lenz Grimmer
<lenz@grimmer.com>
http://lenzg.net/