BahmanM.com

Summary of a meeting with people at foss.ir about ADempiere. Today I was at a meeting at foss.ir office. It was my first time and I was kind of surprised when I met the head, Mr. Ebadi; I was expecting a somehow old know-it-all guy but he was young. Later on I realised that it's an advantage that he's young: he's active! No offence to the older ones but it's just the norm, you know! Before starting the talk another member joined us: Mr. Maddahi; another young motivated person. It was almost a long meeting; we talked about 3 hours and the main topic was how to promote open source in Iran. They have alreay been active for about 4 years but mainly concentrating on the open source backbone software specially Linux. Promoting open source software requires both enough enthusiasts to work on open source projects and enough jobs for them to make their ends meet. So it's a two-way movement: grasping and motivating enthusiasts while convincing and motivating the entre...

In open source world, communicating with members or community (which is almost always carried out by using mailing lists or forums) is crucial to a successful usage or development. Though it requires following only a few simple tricks (etiquette), failing to do so almost invariably leads to hot insulting debates a.k.a flame wars. The most notable fact about internet communication is that it's usually offline. The key to have a successful offline communication is to avoid emotions; this is relatively easy to do, most of the times, following some simple classic rules. 1. Read Thoroughly If you're willing to add your idea to a discussion or comment on someone's post, you first have to understand them. So before even hitting the " reply " button, read the post completely and thoroughly. You will be surprised by the quality of your posts/comments afterwards! Thanks Michael Richter for brining this point up. 2. No CAPS! Avoid w...