Ethical concern

As you may have notice, the posting cadency hasn’t really improved since last time, while the handwritten scrapbook is filling. 

Even if I did participate a little on translation, the support discussion lists were better suited to get a glance at the discourse of the users and programmers. I decided to follow a French support list based in Quebec.

I informed the “administrator” of my intention to conduct a research on his list though the IRC channel associate to the list.

The discussion went like this:

me> I want to confirm, you are in charge of the discussion list, aren’t you?
admin> yes
me> I sent you an email Monday about a research project. Have you check it out? [the email was about getting permission for conducting research]
admin> I see
admin> the list don’t belong to me.
admin> The data that you could find on it is public
admin> the content is only owned by each authors
admin> so no need for my authorization – but “ be kind “ :)

As you can see, as a manager of the list, admin isn’t claiming any ownership. He’s simply using his role as a moderator as I have seen on the list. Now and then, he will only ask people to avoid crude language and that sums it.
Since I didn’t want to interrupt every user of the list for getting consent, I informed the whole list of my intention. Sadly, I never had feedback on this.

And here goes anonymity...

Taken from: Raymond, Eric S. 2001. How To Become A Hacker. http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html.

Finally, a few things not to do.

• Don't use a silly, grandiose user ID or screen name. 

[...]

The only reputation you'll make doing any of these things is as a twit. Hackers have long memories — it could take you years to live your early blunders down enough to be accepted.

The problem with screen names or handles deserves some amplification. Concealing your identity behind a handle is a juvenile and silly behavior characteristic of crackers, warez d00dz, and other lower life forms. Hackers don't do this; they're proud of what they do and want it associated with their real names. So if you have a handle, drop it. In the hacker culture it will only mark you as a loser.

Participant observation as a method

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.