[CREATE] Collaboration on the Libre Graphics Magazine?

[Jake]

Hey Ricardo,

thanks for the insightful email! I agree that when it comes to
graphics, not code, it is essential to have a decisional entity, be it
a single person or a handful of people within the bigger group.

However, from what I've understood, you said that this entity will be
doing all the e.g. layout work. Are you sure that this is the right
way? I'm not sure about #1, but when we develop, I think it might
become necessary to, while of course still having the people who
decide, have other people assist you with the e.g. layout work.

Do you know what I mean?

Jake

2010/9/25 ricardo lafuente <bollecs at sollec.org>:
> Hi Jake,
>
>> How have you done collaboration on past projects?
>
> The short history of LGMag is that ginger, Ana and me got together during
> the days before LGM2010 to bring up an "Issue 0". We managed to pull that
> through, thanks to the help of many members of the community who contributed
> towards the project.
>
> Now, we're on to create #1, since we realised that the team that worked on
> #0 was a good combination.
>
>> Oh so that's not discussed/decided on yet?!
>
> It is, and your points regarding collaboration are very relevant. To be very
> honest here, we  stuck to a traditional 'cathedral'-like model of managing
> the magazine project, in that it's brought together by a central team,
> accepting contributions from anyone. For the first issue, we're sticking
> with what worked with issue #0. After that, we should definitely discuss
> what can be changed and improved, but doing so now is, IMHO, premature. We
> want to get stuff done now.
>
>> Plus, why different solutions? Everything (be it text, editing,
>> graphics or layout) has a source file. That source file can be shared
>> using e.g. Subversion, Dropbox/Ubuntu One, etc.
>
> This is a very interesting discussion. Personally, i'm not sure that the
> principles for creating a FLOSS software package are entirely portable to a
> magazine project. Especially since what is considered a bug in software --
> something that can be fixed with 'good' code -- might not be in a
> graphical/artistic/editorial project, since matters of taste and personal
> opinion come into account (e.g. "This font doesn't look right" can be a
> statement about objective legibility or personal taste).
>
> I think we're still dipping our collective foot in making a publication that
> reflects the principles of the libre graphics community. We're bound to make
> mistakes here and there, but we can only find out the 'right' method if we
> dabble in the 'wrong' ones to find out if they're right or not for us.
>
>> Why make it complicated by having multiple systems?
>
> I don't follow you here, since we haven't yet set in stone which systems we
> are using :-)
>
>> Why not have all in one place
>> (e.g. folder), and people work with the files they're responsible for?
>> Or am I missing something?
>
> Mostly for the purpose of consistency. 'True' collaboration works with
> software because, for each problem, you can actually find an objectively
> satisfying solution.
>
> But say you have many candidates for a magazine's design -- you can't decide
> squarely on efficiency. Taste, aesthetics and other factors come into play.
> This is why you rarely hold votes for implementing a proper bugfix since its
> efficiency can be objectively tested -- it either works or it doesn't.
> However, you would definitely hold a community vote for selecting an icon
> theme for a GNU/Linux distribution. I hope the difference here is clear.
>
> So this is why we are working as a central team that takes care of the
> editorial decisions and the overall design of the publication. And this is
> why it would be good to know what kind of areas you would want to help with.
>
> That said, i'm totally unsure as to how we can find a 'real' collaborative
> and decentralised model to make a magazine. But i would love to have an
> answer for that, and hopefully we'll be finding out as we go through with
> this project.
>
>> Actually I was thinking that you all had already set up a platform for
>> collaboration, and just wanted to know which one it was, but I see
>> this might become a longer discussion. ;)
>
> Indeed, and a very interesting one which we shouldn't shy from.
>
> :r
>
>
>
>> 2010/9/24 ginger coons<ginger at adaptstudio.ca>:
>>>
>>> What kind of collaboration, in specific, are we talking about here? Are
>>> we
>>> discussing editing text, selecting from submissions, or layout work?
>>> Different tasks tend to be subject to different solutions.
>>>
>>> --
>>> ginger "all-lower-case" coons
>>> adaptstudio.ca
>>> 647.865.7757 (Toronto)
>>> 514.213.1318 (Montreal)
>>>
>>> On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 7:36 AM, Jake<cubibubi at googlemail.com>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hey,
>>>>
>>>> how are you planning to solve the issue of collaboration regarding the
>>>> magazine? Will you just put all the files in, say, a subversion
>>>> repository?
>>>>
>>>> I'd be more than happy if I could help with the magazine.
>>>>
>>>> Jake
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