Resolving conflict in technical debates in an ideal world

[Luis de Bethencourt]

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 9:00 AM, Krzysztof Lichota <krzysiek at lichota.net> wrote:
> 2008/9/4 Caroline Ford <caroline.ford.work at googlemail.com>:
>> 2008/9/4 Daniel Holbach <daniel.holbach at ubuntu.com>:
>>> I agree, finding a suitable meeting time is a problem in almost all more
>>> direct forms of communication. Still I think if it's all about finding a
>>> solution to a problem you care about, it will be possible to find a good
>>> meeting time, even if you have to stay up late or get up early.
>>
>> Real time voice calls are more exclusive, with no record. They require
>> people to be around at the same time.
>>
>> Moving from a mailing list to a conference call would cut out
>> everybody who isn't on the conference call.
>>
>> Many more people read (and learn) from these lists than participate.
>
> I completely agree with that.
>
> I would also add language barrier. Native English speakers often
> forget about that. Quite many people have passive English knowledge
> (i.e. they can read and write), but are afraid to talk in English.
> This would cut them out too.
>
> --
>
>        Krzysztof Lichota
>
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Spoken word is more human and has better layers of communication than
text. But it shouldn't completely replace text (and I don't think
anybody is suggesting that), it should complement it.

Small group conversations can be dealt with much quicker with voice.
But it doesn't scale.

It is indeed very common to take big group conversations into a subset
of a few private conversations. In this cases voice is the best thing,
but a text summary for the rest of the group to stay informed is
ideal.

If besides technical debates we center in free software technical
debates, we have to take in consideration that the key of the
succesful free projects it's not only that the outcome software is
open but also the process. As an example... compare Ubuntu's open-ness
with Google Chrome's.

Luis de Bethencourt

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