"We, Plone"
Psychoanalysis of a community. Psychology of developers.
Éric Bréhault - PloneConf 2016
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What is it about?
Our feelings…
… as developers
… as contributors
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Why do we contribute?
Explain that to your father-in-law.
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Bottom line
You work for free for people you don't know.
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You are either…
- stupid
- or
generousstupid
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It's not about the money
"It's not about the money, money, money
We don't need your money, money, money
We just wanna make the world dance,
Forget about the price tag"
Jessie J
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Why do we work?
- livelihood
- existence
- consistency
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- livelihood: we need to eat
- existence: we need to be part of the society
- consistency: we need a shared ideal
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Consistency matters
Only 16% of employees would recommend their company's products.
That's an epic disaster!!
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ok, that's just in France, and we love to criticize everything: we love to criticize things we don't like, we love to criticize things we like, and we love to criticize things we do not even care about. But still:
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Consistency matters
100% of community members would recommend their product.
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Otium and negotium
Otium = free time, but not just leisure: time for caring
Negotium = the very opposite of otium
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negotium => negociate => business => to be busy => not available
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So, business = not caring? really?
Sounds exagerated.
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Example
My customer finds a bug: "Sooooo boring…"
A stranger thinks there is a bug in my last night commit: "I need to fix that ASAP!"
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A stronger responsibility feeling
Why?
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Minority vs Majority
"Was ist Aufklärung?", Kant
Minor ("Unmündig" also means "dependent" or "unfree") = has no responsibility
Major = autonomous, scholar among scholars
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vassa iste aoufklarounk What Is Enlightenment?
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Developers are grown-ups
The software industry tends to reduce their responsibility.
Communities values their grown-ups status.
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they read my code, I read their (developers among developers).
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Only grown-ups can be parents
Do softwares need parents?
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Writing software is not ordinary production
It is a full creation process managed by the same person (or team).
It is long and iterative.
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This process induces parenthood
We want our code to be better.
We feel proud of it.
We want it to be prepared for the future.
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That's the same whatever is your programming level. Mention rapido creation (-3kg) and Plomino (wake me up at night).
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Communities are adoption structures
Make sure a software always has loving parents to raise it.
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Not just a bunch of developers sharing code
It works like a family: we welcome new members we trust to raise the next generation.
Caring about the software implies we care about the community: we are sharing a common parenthood.
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"I" needs a "We"
"L'individuation psychique et collective", Gilbert Simondon
Becoming myself is a process, which is both individual and collective.
Belonging to a group makes me feel more as myself.
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"I" is just a phase of this process, like a React immutable state :)
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We want to be Plone
The community emanates from the desire of its contributors.
Community > sum(contributors)
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this common desire turns the basic existence of the group into an actual consistency of the community
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We, Plone
Transindividuation (Bernard Stiegler)
Plone participates to our "We" and each of our "I" processes.
At the same time, it is also the result of them.
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Two outputs
- Plone-the-thing
- Plone-the-concept
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Plone-the-thing
Just the software itself. Just code.
Plone-the-thing is not perfect.
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a tertiary retention
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Plone-the-concept
Plone-the-concept is our moral ideal.
It is the community's super-ego ("Über-Ich").
It is (meta-)stable across a collective memory even if contributors change.
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Our common knowledge of this code, our memory of its past, the future we imagine create Plone-the-concept. The knowledge of its origin too (Zope), and maybe we have reach the point where we have to kill the father.
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So...
I am not a philosopher nor a psychanalyst.
This talk is potentially a total fraud.
But I can answer one question.
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or did I mean a total freud?
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What does keep Plone going?
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Love!
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