Politicizing technical question

Ubuntu developers community has been describe as a community of practice before (see older post). I think this concept could also apply to the users of the discussion list I am following. They gather for enhancing their practice of Ubuntu. They use the discussion list to ask how to perform a really specific task, (lately it was about installing Ubuntu on a third drive), and everyone is trying to find a way to perform the task. Sometimes, it does look like a game: someone comes up with a problem, and then everyone is trying to get the better solution. It is the same pattern as describe in The Charms of Wikipedia (2008). That’s what makes the list so attractive to the users.

Almost every conversation on the list begins with a support question. But the support question often leads to larger discussion about open source philosophy and/or how to convince more people to join in. Not all support question that lead to open sources philosophy. Unsolved technical problems related to closed source driver, or closed source software are more subject to lead to broader discussion. Situations where corporation force open source user into closed source software give ways to heated debate on the discussion list. This restriction of liberty and choice encourage the users to consider political action, and some of the discussions did lead to concrete action.

Baker, Nicholson. 2008. The Charms of Wikipedia. The New York Review of Books 55, no. 4 (March 20).