Whether Why (and Niki Niki) will ever be an Open Source Clublet is of course an Open Question.

I am very interesetd in the idea of Open Source Programming. I think it has a lot of potential in the creative industry. I am involved particularly in video and music, where I think copyright of creativity is a big pain. I've read a little about how it should work, but could someone tell me how it works in practice? I understand that anyone can change the code if they want to, but are there specific people who keep an eye on how the code changes and who decides when a version is ready to be let loose amongst beta testers? Is there a hierarchy involved? -- Jem Mackay

Jem, I suggest you visit sourceforge.org, and find the Audacity (multi-track sound editor) project and have a look at their mail archive. The 'hierarchy' is really determined with how much time people have put in, so at the top is the original creator of the project (who keeps trying not to take an autocratic role) then come principal programmers who have contributed a lot to the program over a number of years, then come more common or garden programmers, document writers etc. Consensus is the rule, e.g. 6 months ago there was a general consensus that it was about time for a major release, so since then a lot of work has been on getting the code release ready, rather than adding new features. Most of the time the program kind of grows organically, with people adding features that they feel are needed. I for example changed the way the toolbars work so that they stack automatically as the previous plan wasted too much screen real estate. You usually get rights to edit after making some contribution, such as finding and fixing a number of bugs. -- James Crook

Thanks very much James, very helpful. I've been reading The Cathedral And The Bazaar by Eric Raymond. That was very interesting as well. I'll make Sourceforge my next surfing destination. -- Jem Mackay

And Leigh Caldwell has been reading the extreme right-winger too. Let the battle recommence? -- Richard Drake

Well, in fact not a great deal happened after that. By contrast, this month Wikipedia Beats The New York Times on daily traffic. It's increasingly interesting and important to think about Wikipedia as an Open System. And I think Why's a great place to do that. -- Richard Drake