After some scouting on the Ubuntu forums, I've come to the point were participant observation need to kick in. I've located a working team that I will try to join as a regular member, and I will participate as much as I can in the free / open source projects. For ethical reason, I'll notify the group leader of my researcher's status. On another part, I will comply with their norm and behavior as much as it is possible for me. There are various requirements to join the team that I'll try to fill out. The inclusion process in itself will probably provide lots of information on what defined this group. This part will be my main objective for now and once inside the group, I'll see how I can contribute, and at the same time I hope to get a better understanding of the community..
On a different note, language is a key component in understanding how a community think and work. So last weekend, in a spontaneous excess of motivation, I've started learning a programming language. This experience is completely new to me, but already, I've learned many things about the community through this learning process.
For someone who has never programs before, learning a code language involve more than reading a manual. You need to choose out a language to learn (oh yes, there's more than one!), why this one is relevant for the F / OSS community, you need to look for advice, for new module to include in your program and so on. When I made this decision, I hadn't realized how relevant this might be. Even if the main focus on this project will not be on programming language, I think the process of learning a language may provide insightful information.
In sums, I start my investigation with those two paths:
1- Getting accepted in a working group.
2- Learning coding language
The objectives in themselves are not relevant, the process is.
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I also find these individuals can be excellent teachers on how to use difficult or exotic code (because I was ignorant of it, it was difficult and exotic). I essentially locked myself out of my own laptop, forgetting the password needed to enter Ubuntu, then apparently getting the username wrong too. I know, it's ridiculous. They essentially taught me the rudiments for hacking my own laptop, not quite, but they pointed me in a certain direction and they hoped I would get the rest on my own (which I did of course).
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