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We will be experimenting with some sort of on-line chat to assist development and management of the JOS. This chat forum will be mud-like.

We have plenty to discuss... kernel items, licensing, infrastructure concerns, political items, legal concerns, project status, brainstorming, project ideas, the weather, ...

E-Mail provides a great forum for ideas to be posted and batted back and forth when no immediate response is required. The wiki is great for long term living documents that can be continuously revised. Both are poor for brainstorming, consensus building, etc.

There are many ways to run chats. Hopefully the on-line meeting solution would not impose any structure unless it is absolutely required. Some meetings, particularly those where a large number of people need to be present, must be very quick and efficient. To do so, those types of meetings will have the most rigorous structure, including agendas and a standardized time. Small design meetings among a limited set of people can be very free form.

For some key meetings where a great deal of structure is needed, a standardized time will be set. This is absolutely needed so that every individual has a equal chance to voice (or rather type) their opinion and ideas, provide feedback, join solid brainstorms, raise concerns, build consensus on key items that may concern a significant body of members.

For smaller, group level meetings each group is welcome and encouraged to use the facility with or without a standardized or pre-announced time.

We have some serious opportunities that will come and go if we do not grab hold of them. Having guest speakers is one such opportunity. Many of our weekly meetings will involve one or more guest speakers. For instance, in a few weeks we might have Ralph Johnson give a quick talk about design patterns. Or we might invite Rick Ross to talk about Java developments. We might have a meeting with big name people in the free/public licensing business. Possibly Andy Tannenbaum will show up. Who knows? Bill Gates might pop in one day to say hi.

Requested, not mandatory. There will be agendas and minutes.

We all have stuff to do. Not everyone is expected to make all meetings. To help you make the decision, an agenda will be posted (at least) 3 days prior to the meeting. Usually, most agenda items will be filled in several weeks in advance to provide ample time for discussion on the lists and mini-meetings before we all get together. Each key meeting will be recorded and minutes will be written up and posted. If you have points to make for a meeting that you cannot attend, you can write a one paragraph commentary which will be "typed" during the meeting for all to see, these commentaries should be sent to the active chair in question.

We will be using a mud, specifically the DiscWorld mud-lib.

A mud is the minimum technology that allows many people to participate. It will involve telnet to port 4242 of a selected server. Telnet is a widely known and supported standard on Mac, Windows, and Unix.

Some companies might not let you telnet to a server using a port other than 21. We can have official letters sent to the appropriate people in your company describing the process and how you are devoting your "spare" time to the JOS effort. It should not be hard to get an exception for a free operating system. If not, we can create a list of supporting companies who will. :)

They do not have soul and they are not programmable.

A mud is fully programmable, if we don't like the environment we can change it to fit our needs. Allot to be said about this.

Glad you asked. Soul is something that we have in person to person meetings. We can see when the other person is happy, sad, disturbed, angry, or has any other emotion to what we do or say. Most chat servers do not even attempt to model "soul". At least some muds, including DiscWorld try. It is important to have soul in our project... working without seeing each other is hard. Working together without soul... impossible.

Meetings take a completely different form when soul is involved. Instead of saying "gosh that's great" you would "bing excitedly".. need I say more. By simply typing "frown" you let everyone in the room (and no one out side the room) know that you are currently not happy about something. Powerful stuff.

Every JOS member will also be given a room that they are free to decorate as they see fit. They can give personal descriptions of themselves, etc. If you can figure out how to login all day long (telnet is a pretty thin client) you can sit idle in your room, your team's workroom, the living room, the entry way, or a small closet with your favorite stuffed animal.

It's important that we simulate the realworld as much as we can. Community counts. Environment counts. You count. We want you to participate as a person.... complete with you feelings, not just as an un-seen coder.

I hope this gels... if it doesn't, try it when things get rolling. You will see... if not, give me a holler... and we'll hang out some.

- ClarkEvans

Previous comments

It would be interesting if we could have an on-line meeting. ICQ has public rooms. What do you think?

Sounds cool, but why not IRC? Say, efnet #jos? I mean, ICQ isn't available on unix, right? I'm sure there are quite a few here that use unix, and IRC is pretty accessible to everyone...

-MasonZhwiti

Can we meet at a web-site that has a Java or Web-based chat system? I usually log in from Unix-based network computers at my school, and it would be easiest if we just employed some websites chat capabilities, maybe like Excite chat or something.

--BradNeuberg, 2/23/98

An online meeting is a great idea! I agree with Brad, Java or HTML-based is the best solution.

What about time zones? Some JOS members are in Germany, others in the US, others probably all over the world. For the first two parties, about 21h (Greenwich time) would be an acceptable time.

--StefanReich, 2/23/98

I was thinking about using DiscWorld... www.imaginary.com There is a java/http client.

Good idea, 21h GMT = 16h (4PM) EST = 12h (noon) PST.

How does that fit with people down under?

- ClarkEvans

Actually 4pm EST would be 1pm PST. I only know this 'cause my boss is in California and I'm in Florida. :) 4pm's ok with me... What time would that be in Germany and down under?

--MasonZhwiti

I think it's pretty cool that we have to sync time zones! I've never worked on such an international project before. What day of the week would this be, so that I can get the notes if I have to skip a class? If we decide on a time & date, maybe we can add a new small billboard to the Main page called JOS Meetings, with something like this:

BORDER ROWS=2 WIDTH=270>
JOS Meeting Billboard:
All meetings held at DiscWorld at www.imaginary.com
General meeting on 2/##/98
GMT: ### Eastern Time: ### Pacific Time: ###
etc. etc. Is it possible to query some server on the internet and have it return all of these different time zones for us automatically, given a certain GMT? Perhaps we can throw together a small Perl script that will print out all of the times for a given GMT:

http://www.jos.org?GMT=21h

which would dynamically create a page listing all of the different Eastern times, Pacific, Mountain, etc.

BradNeuberg, 2/23/98

Who has some experience with Chat/MUD systems and can arrange a meeting room for us? --StefanReich, 2/24/98

Give me two days... to set up the environment. PinkFish has vounenteered a mud host that we can share with many other groups. Once I get some preliminary virtual rooms up, I'll post the address and announce it! Thank PinkFish

- ClarkEvans

That's great! Thank PinkFish :-)

--StefanReich, 2/24/98

The best part.... it has DiscWorld's soul! :) - ClarkEvans 24-FEB-98

Does anyone else think that we have enough to discuss that weekly meetings at standard times would be beneficial? - MyriaD, 25-Feb-98



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