[Infrastructures] Re: Infrastructures.Org rework

[Adam Soudure]

Steve,


>Hi Kevin, Joel, All,
>
>Kevin, a few years ago you posted the Infrastructure Design Patterns
>idea below.  Developments at a current client tell me that, maybe now
>more than ever we (1) need a pattern library, and (2) now have enough
>material to populate it.  The case I'm encountering right now is one
>in which lack of generally available and concise patterns, a library
>to refer to, is causing a great deal of semantic difficulty.  There is
>still not a general understanding, even among senior UNIX folks who
>should know better, that use of a given pattern in an infrastructure
>implies certain behaviors, costs, and compatibility (or not) with
>other patterns.  I'm watching yet another case of an organization
>spending a great deal of time and money, and enjoying some pretty
>painful internal conflict, while trying to re-invent things that at
>least half the members of this list already learned the hard way.

I am but a lurker, but apply and build on the lessons in 
Infrastructures.org on a daily basis. I think a patterns library would be a 
great idea. I would even be happy to contribute in whatever way you would 
see fit.


>Everyone else; the question I have for you is this:  Would you be
>willing to contribute to a wiki or other community-edited repository
>of documents which serve as design patterns and RFC-like standards
>documents, in which, by contributing, you might be listed in a
>"contributors" section, but would not retain copyright in your
>contribution?  I hate doing it that way, but it's the only way we'd be
>able to easily print the result.  I'm not doing this for profit motive
>-- bog knows very few technical book authors make significant income
>from the proceeds, and this is such a niche that we may never be able
>to get it published except via e.g. lulu.com.  The only reason for
>publishing on paper at all is to try to get wider dissemination and
>make all of our jobs easier.

Yes, absolutely.

>An example to emulate, for instance, might be the Python Cookbook;
>recipes drawn from the web site are published in an O'Reilly book, and
>the primary contributors are credited with each recipe.  A portion of
>proceeds can be fed back into the community in some way, etc.  There
>are probably several ways of doing this, and I'm sure there are people
>out there who would already have in mind how this should be licensed;
>please feel free to provide suggestions.

How about some Creative Commons style thing? I think folks ought to be able 
to profit from their work or simply give it to the community and still 
receive their due credit. Like another poster, I think an O'Reilly animal 
would be way cool ;-)

So, in summary, your idea gets my vote.

Cheers

Adam
--
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Adam Soudure - DCS Systems Manager
Schlumberger, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Mobile: 60 12 231 2729
email: asoudure@slb.com
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