[CREATE] Collaboration on the Libre Graphics Magazine?

[ricardo lafuente]

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
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> CREATE mailing list
>>> CREATE at lists.freedesktop.org
>>> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/create
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> CREATE mailing list
>> CREATE at lists.freedesktop.org
>> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/create
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> CREATE mailing list
> CREATE at lists.freedesktop.org
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/create
>