How to Protect and Survive (Open Source) Projects From Poisonous People

Facing with poisonous people in your open source project that distract the progress, emotionally drain the community, cause severe infighting, or person who are selfish, uncooperative, and disrespectful. Even too much perfectionist and insider who too obsessed with the project may cause problem within the project community and affect or delay the project’s progress from moving forward. All these people belongs to the group that aptly named “poisonous people” for these people can silently poison the atmosphere of a happy developer community. How to handle this specific group of poisonous people from creating trouble and affecting the fun or effort put into any project, not only the open source project, is important for the success of the task.

Ben Collins-Sussman and Brian W. Fitzpatrick shares their opinions and best practices on “How to Project Your Open Source Project from Poisonous People” in a session of Google Tech Talks. They suggested to tackle the issue of poisonous people in the project in 4 stages of protection, which allows administrator or owner to identify trouble maker or poisonous people and peacefully de-fuse them before they derail the project.

The Four Stages of Protection

1. Comprehension – Understand what, who and how is poisonous people.
2. Fortification – Fortify and protect a project from poisonous people.
3. Identification – Identify who is these people.
4. Disinfection – If you’re so unlucky, here how’s you can ‘disinfect’ your project.

Watch the video of the Google Tech Talks session on “How to Project Your Open Source Project from Poisonous People” with lots of (often amusing) real-life anecdotes and experiences.

Related Articles

• New Open Source OS – Google Chrome Operating System
• Eudora’s Debut To Be An Open Source Email Program
• BMW Urged Other Automaker To Develop Open Source Platform
• Netgear Launches Open Source Wireless-G Router (WGR614L)
• Download Free Google Chrome Open Source Web Browser (Chromium)
• Download Free and Open Source OpenOffice.org 3.0.0 Office Suite Final Version
• Download Adeona Free Open Source Software to Help Keeping Track of Lost or Stolen Laptop
• DeskLock to Password Protect and Open Applications with Hotkeys
• Firefox Add-On Notable Streamlines Collaboration Work on Web Design Projects
• Naked People on Google Earth

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 14th, 2007 at 9:32 pm and is filed under Tips & Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.