The Collaboration for Distributed Software Development (C4DSD)

The purpose of this group is two-fold:

1) Research and Education

Discussion and learning on ideas and techniques to support software development among collaborating entities at distributed sites. This will naturally include subjects around facilitating distributed development within one entity and facilitating collaborative development among entities even at one site.

2) Creation and Collaboration

A forum for interested persons and entities to work towards creating functional distributed software development collaboratives. Possibly similar to a business incubator model but with no resources provided. (Other than those created and/or contributed by the members.)

Definition:

Collaborative, distributed software development would be:

• Creating a system for distributed software development
• Creating systems for managing the social, legal, proprietary and other issues of collaborating entities
• Using and improving the real skills and capabilities of the collaborators
• Responsible people sharing their skills to profit through synergies
• Skilled people working together to multiply their professional capabilities and extend their reach into the marketplace
• All about "voting with your feet," i.e. work as Open Space

Possible Meeting Topics:

• Qualifying the skills of collaborators via credentials and skills assessment tools such as a Behaviorally Anchored Self-Assessment.
• Ideas of for-profit collaborations vs. non-profit collaborations such as barn raising, volunteer projects.
• Research and develop IDE tooling needed to coordinate distributed work and distributed pay.
• Principles for making virtual communities work (Godwin, 1994)
• Discuss the social, legal and proprietary issues of collaboratives.
• Shoshona Zuboff's book Support Economy extensively discusses her views on the principles of economic collaborations in the future.