HOWTO: Joining the Zynauts

Hi all,

= Well, Here We Are =

Let me start again by saying I look forward to all of the feedback.
Lots of it.  I don't try to be verbose, but I do expect the community to
return the favor if only be sheer numbers.

One thing that will be needed as soon as possible is a "Zynot Zynaut
Zummary" weekly newsletter, as someone can probably summarize my
thoughts in bullet points far better than I could.  As such, I'm just
going to let this stuff flow out as it does, perhaps a "Zwelch Zummary"
may also be desired after each of my posts. ;)

This may have double the value as my stories kinda tend to wrap
together, characters spilling out and over their nice and tidy boxes and
into other plots.  Objective and intellegent observers are needed to
splice the appropriate pieces back together.

Sorry folks, I'm just trying my best here.

= So Who Is Really In Charge? =

Our development teams are current self-organizing.  I am empowering
people as fast as I can, but delegation takes time to investigate
possible leaders and select the right people for the jobs.

As much as possible, the community needs to step forward and select
leaders from within its ranks.  The following description should help
everyone through these initial growing pains, and we will probably
encounter minor turbulance as we get our infrastructure fully on-line.

At this point, everyone needs to use resources like IRC, forums, and
these mailing lists to find others that have already expressed intersest
in the things that you may be interested in.  There are a lot of
possibilities right now, but the amount of developer support we rally
will determine the scope of work we can initially undertake.

= Show Me the Spec[ification] =

As such, one of the chief mottos I have begun to float around the
community is "Show Me The Spec!".  The implication being that ideas may
be infinite, but resources are not.  If you are resistant to that
friendly notion, then you will be met with the more adamant response to
"WTFM"... need I elaborate further? :)

Everyone interested in participating in this project should add
information about themselves to the Zynot wiki.  This can include as
little or as much information as you like; however, please include
contact email and areas of interest.  Spec yourself.

 From there, find or add a project page, contributing your project ideas
and plans for realizing them.  I can provide more information and
details for defining "Complete Project Description", and the formal
ideas will part of the "Zynot Management Process" paper that I am
writing.  I hope ya'll are already anticipating it's arrival.

= Professionals First =

Please use your real name on the wiki; we will be providing @zynot.org
email addresses as soon as possible, and logins will be patterned after
<firstinitial:lastname> with very limited but reasonable exceptions.
Obscure nicknames make associating a real name more difficult, and it
detracts from the professional image I would like to see our new
community foster.  I am always reasonable, though.

Beyond that, please treat all of the Zynot resources as you would your
own servers and services.  We will be extending our web of trust as
rapidly as possible. Speaking for myself, the fastest way to earn trust
will be to act prossionally, curteous, and engaging to every person that
posts, joins an IRC channel, or even walks past you on the sidewalk.
Suck it up and grin instead of cursing.  Please police yourselves, and
certainly smack me around if you find me getting out of line.

I want Zynot to absolutely reek of professionalism.  Sound good?

= I'm A Zynaut - So Now What? =

Once posting information on the wiki, continue to use the other
resources (irc, forums, mailing lists) to develop the ideas.  Once they
have matured and sufficient resources have been "allocated" (i.e. you've
convinced enough developers of the new project's merits), the project
*should* come up for a community vote.

I say should because we don't currently have the means to quantitatively
assess the community's opinion.  Complicating matters, an individual's
scoring for a project should arguably take into account their overall
ability to assess the proposal in the first place.

This implies a non-binary voting system that can come to a reasonable a
decision based on a comparison of skill sets required and provided by
the project and developer, respectively.  Anything like that exist yet?
Anyone interested in helping build it?  Keep these thoughts in mind,
the upcoming management proposal will get back to these ideas in
elaborate detail.  You have been warned.  :)

= Zynot and Business =

I expect this distribution to be wholly compatible with business needs.
The definition of "business needs" will be an interesting topic to
discuss at length.

There are a lot of people that have businesses that want to build
products and services around a free distribution that serves their
needs in the embedded and enterprise realms.  I am not alone - big
surprise.  For myself, I think everyone probably knows that my interests
lie in embedded, ARM, and Zyrvices (see the wiki for information).

Similarly, visitors to our enclave may also be potential customers or
clients of the distribution, and we must ensure that we are addressing
their needs first.  Customers determine value; our customers are
businesses that work with enterprise and embedded.  Developers may
someday become service providers or clients themselves, if they are
treated well during their tenure with the project.  We can not afford any

= Non-Profit and Business =

When I talk about freedom, consider again my three perspectives: user,
developer, and businessman.  The businessman in me may not care about
anything but free beer, but as a developer and user, I want to ensure
freedom of choice above all else.  And those two thirds will neatly beat
that other third bloody ever time it tries to ignore those liberties.

I will be weary of those that appear to have business interests above
those of the community's developers and users.  In the end, freedom of
choice should be good for business, too.

= Zynot, the Non-Profit =

It was after one of these "mental brawls" that I knew I had to create a
non-profit for this distribution. Because of the personal necessity for
a fork, both my time and captical are now vested in this new
distribution, instead of leveraging Gentoo in my company.

If I wanted to create profit for only myself or my company, then I would
not be spending money that I could have invested on my still growing
company.  In fact, I have largely lost the 'fair and equitable'
advantage that I thought I had with Gentoo and with the embedded and ARM.

As we are all starting together and as equals in this organization, I
have actually given up a potentially larger sized commercial win if I
have just looked past any personal issues I may have felt and done
business with Gentoo. Of course, that's all water under the bridge now,
so let's get back to the plot.

Everything is up for grabs in this new community - come one and come
all.  Again, membership will have its privileges, and those that
actively assist with the establishment of this non-profit will be
recognized when the final role call is done.  And you can't kiss up to
me directly, each project will have to find a leader and that should
then be the target for the masses to ....

= He Did It For Publicitity? =

Okay, so I have hear that people "know my name" now.  We all know it's
just "blah blah blah," and some other poor sucker gets their name in the
headlines.  Thanks, but I didn't (and still don't) entirely want the
exposure - whether for 15 minutes or even 15ns.  But I suppose I must
now myself be the one to "get over it", eh? :)

I'd rather be right than either rich or famous.  Do fame and fortune
really make anyone that attains such status sleep better at night?

= With All That In Mind =

I am fully committed to making this distribution succeed for everyone
that can tolerate the processes we will be putting into place.  I hope
that I can continue to lead this project in your good graces, and I will
work hard to ensure that everyone's needs are addressed (if not met).

Remember, no distribution can serve all needs.  I will be looking over
the list of developers that have fully committed to working on this
project (as should everyone else), and I would like the community come
up with a list of candidates for all the project management
responsibilities.

Cheers,

Zach Welch

My title? This breakdown should make it clearer where my loyalties lie:
   66% - Founder of The Zynot Foundation        (non-profit)
   33% - Founder of Superlucidity Services, LLC (for-profit)
Guess who's going to be winning the fight?