Shane is founder of Punderthings℠ LLC consultancy, helping organizations find better ways to engage with the critical open source projects that power modern technology and business. He blogs and tweets about open source governance and trademark issues, and has spoken at major technology conferences like ApacheCon, OSCON, All Things Open, Community Leadership Summit, and Ignite.
Shane Curcuru serves as VP Brand Management for the ASF, wrote the trademark and branding policies that cover all 200+ Apache® projects, and assists projects with defining and policing their trademarks, as well as negotiating agreements with various software vendors using Apache software brands. Shane is serving a seventh term as an elected Director of the ASF, providing governance oversight, community mentoring, and fiscal review for all Apache projects.
Otherwise, Shane is: a father and husband, a BMW driver and punny guy. Oh, and we have cats! Follow @ShaneCurcuru and read about open source communities and see my FOSS Foundation directory.
Authored Comments
Good point. Key question: what tasks do you see each communication channel being used for? And just as importantly: what kinds of people use each communication channel?
Apache projects default to mailing lists (from our history), which tends to work for developers actively working on the code. Some larger projects have forums - for end user questions, configuration, and how to use the product as a whole.
Understanding if different kinds of conversations are focused - or perhaps trying to move one set of conversations (likely the developer / code building talk) first might help.
Thought experiment for a follow-on article: for new projects, which documentation is more important to focus on first: roadmaps and "How this cool thing will fix your widgets!" usage docs, or technical documentation, clear build scripts, and things that will attract potential contributors?
I.e. how do you think about improving the user experience, vs. improving the developer experience, for new projects getting started?
Let me know if you write that article too - if not I'll need to ponder it!