She found that writing these manuals were no easy task. Some of her students had zero skill in web developing so she had to make her manuals detailed and easy to follow. That’s when she realized that building Drupal site was “time consuming”… after she has written down the steps.
Emma suggested that it was a risky selling the program before she had a program to sell, but Emma also pointed out that it was what was so great about it. By not having the program, she can test the market with zero effort on her part. (Unlike the book, which she spent a lot of time on but turns out to have made very little money)She also stated that her program was successful because it provides the community that her students were desiring. Her students took up the course because they wanted to be with 100 other people that they can share their experience learning Drupal and discuss their problems. They wanted the support community
I got the feeling that Emma was more of a business woman than a software developer. This quote of her view on open source developers stuck with me. “Open source developers are great at making new technology, but are very bad marketers.” Her quote and her shared experience made me realize it’s really hard to be a proper software entrepreneur and be good at both making desired products and selling the desired products. I was surprised that Emma shared all her income broken down by the products she sold, which included books, workbooks, sites, and her teaching programs. I was able to take a peek at what is involved to properly market a product like price points, group buys and popularity. This gave me an insight on how tough it was to be a successful open source developer, if being successful would mean good at making money.
==Free and Open Source Strategy as Practice: Participant Perspectives - Mekki MacAulay==
Normal 0 false false false EN-US KO X-NONEAfter the site building extravaganza I’ve decided to attend “Free and Open Source Strategy as Practice: Participant Perspectives” by Mekki MacAulay who is a PhD Candidate for strategic management at Schulich School of Business. I was drawn into it because I thought I would be learning about how to about open source strategies and practices and would be useful for my DPS909 course. How stupid was I for not digesting the rest of the topic. “Participant Perspectives”.
After Although the site building extravaganza I’ve presentation was not something I was expecting, just like the previous talk I attended, I found the talk very interesting. So instead of talking about the practices that new programmers should use, Mekki decided to attend “Free go deep into strategies and Open Source Strategy as Practice: Participant Perspectives” practices that are being used. I personally wouldn’t even be able to split the practices like he was able to but after listening to his talk, it started to make sense why research like his were important. Mekki started by Mekki MacAulay who is a PhD Candidate for strategic management at Schulich School identifying the type of users in the open source community and questioned the room whether the core developers or the end users would feel the burden of Businesswrong practices the most. I was drawn into Although people from the room blurted out core developers, he told us that it is the people who are further away from the core developers has more opinions about practices because they are hit the most. In the beginning I thought I just made a guess that it would be learning about core developers, but after listening to his presentation, I can understand why it is not. Mekki’s main focus on his study is how practices affect the outcome of an open source community. He understands that communities can split, make have unclear directions or does not make progress at times and wants to about study why these effects occur. First, Mekki classified enabling and disabling practices. Mekki further broke them down to recursive and adaptive practices. Mekki interviewed various people involved in the open source strategies community. He did not identify who the interviewees were but they ranged from project leader to passive users. The interviewees gave examples of practices and Mekki was able to categorize the practices and would make a table to show that recursive practice tends to be disabling while adaptive practice tends to be useful for my DPS909 courseenabling. How stupid was He also compared recursive practice to cathedral and adaptive practice to bazaar, which I found interesting because I for not digesting have read the rest of story less than couple months ago and knew about the topic. “Participant Perspectives”to agree with his presentation.
Although I love the presentation fact that he seemed happy to present his topic. He was prepared to answer questions by the audience and did not something I was expecting, just like the previous talk I attended, I found discourage the talk very interesting. Mekki decided class to go deep into strategies and practices that are being usedhave an open discussion. I personally wouldn’t even be able to split There were many types of programmers in the practices room ranging from students like he was able me to but after listening to his talk, it started to make sense why research like his were importantpeople who had looked very experienced with open source sharing what they thought about various parts of the presentation.
==Conclusion==
I would definitely say that attending FSOSS 2011 was an “enabling” experience. I enjoyed being there. Even though I was dreading to attend, I am happy to say I am converted! It is hard to express how educating it was for me to attend the symposium and no brainer for the open source class, DPS909, makes students attend FSOSS. If I was asked what the most important thing was that I gained from FSOSS, I would answer that I learned open source is about the community. Strong community is what drives programmers to help out and reach a common goal. It provides developers with comfort while they develop the next level. Even though FSOSS was not my first conference, I have to say it was the conference where I learned the most. Having a chance to hear from such a variety of speakers who have such broad and different experiences is what makes FSOSS so exciting. You can count on me to be at FSOSS 2012… All three days of it!
