Andrew Sayman

I think I could make myself a big name in the open-source world if I put together an awesome visualization for the blog and mailing-list drama that all of these developers share. I know I love to follow it and read about it. Looking at kerneltrap.org and LWN the articles that follow developer arguments are the ones that I flock to.

Yesterday's post of mine transformed into a rather well-written article by Jonathan Corbet. I don't think I can write as well or put it together as well, but, a visualization would be nice. When you look at the framing of that article there's a distinct time-line wrapped amongst it that is lost. Neither the full article or the mailing list threads can seem to capture it.

Then there are other developing dramas that have no centralized place to watch them unfold. Such is the disadvantage to blogs, and the nature that drives RSS feeds.

Ryan Paul of Ars Technica fame wrote this article about GTK+ 3 development. Personally, I loved it. Thomas Wood, however, didn't agree. Ryan, being a member of the GNOME community and a blog watcher, didn't take these comments silently. Thomas, wanting to have the last word, defended himself against Ryan's attack of sorts. Seems both of them have a standing issue with the other's use of language, but, Thomas doesn't seem to like the threats of less coverage coming from Ryan over the whole matter.

These sorts of flows interest me a lot, and, I wonder how they might be transformed into something more visible and trackable. At the very least, what if I forget about this? These things are often settled quietly amongst blogs and, I think, this may actually be a core source of where so much misinformation comes from. We tend to assume that the heavy visibility of the whole matter makes the truth obvious. Ultimately though, there's a flood of information that's not easy for people to follow, even if they know exactly where to find it.