Section 17.2. Working as a Group

17.2. Working as a Group

The first group project, in the sense of planned action, was to help everyone know how to write to journalists and editors so as to get good results. The FOSS community is not a group of phonies, and they tend to speak their minds. Also, a lot of us geeks are not socially skilled, so sometimes journalists would tell me how offensive the email they got had been. So, I put up on Groklaw examples of good letters, letters that did not offend, and the point was well received, so much so that I had two journalists remark that they never got any flames or nasty email from Groklaw readers.

At one point, we decided that someone should answer Darl McBride, CEO of SCO. He had written an open letter to the open source community. I asked if my readers felt like writing a response, and they did, so we worked on it online together, in the open. After all, his letter was addressed to us. Ideas would be left as comments, and then I'd incorporate them into the letter and post the next version; Then readers would suggest tweaks and more data, which I'd then incorporate and post the next version, until we were all satisfied. It took about two weeks. The Inquirer, which had been watching us create it, offered to post the letter and an accompanying collection of research supporting the points we had written on its web site.

This was very helpful, because by then, so many comments were being placed on Groklawhundreds more than any other site on Radio Userlandthat the software was struggling, and we were afraid that if we got any more traffic, we'd simply melt off the Internet. That letter led to another growth spurt of Groklaw members, and at around that point, we simply had to move to larger quarters, and ibiblio graciously invited us on board after a Groklaw member wrote them to petition on our behalf.

It was still the early days, back in the fall of 2003, and we hadn't yet attracted many trolls or astroturfers, which is why it all worked so well. We were a group of like-minded people, all striving toward a common goal. No one cared a bit about credit, only results, and it was refreshing, even if it was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

What did I learn? That there truly is wisdom in crowds, and that you can rely on someone in such a group thinking of everything you truly need. Also, that somebody has to be willing to work harder than everyone else and be the final arbiter, or nothing ends up getting done. Later in Groklaw's development, there were other lessons to be learned.