And that brings up his 50…

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The language of cricket, I miss it so, or at least Test Match Special. In this instance the subject line is slightly misleading because the 50 in question is actually books. I set myself a goal at the beginning of 2009 to read at least 50 books this year. I have just completed my 50th. Probably not time left in 2009 for a century, though I do have a shelf of books queued up waiting to be read so I might as well press on. 50, however, is a good point to pause and review. The complete list, in the order that I read them, can be found at the end of this post.

What can I discern from this list of books?

  • 9 were borrowed from our public library
  • 16 have Canadian authors
  • 3 were chosen due to personal recommendations from friends
  • 9 authors have multiple books on this list
  • 1 book was being reread (a surprisingly low number, I usually reread more books than that during a year)
  • 5 were read aloud by my wife and me
  • 6 are non-fiction

In the mix there are some great reads, some light fun reads, some serious reads, and probably only one dud.

First 50 books read in 2009:

  • Chabon, Michael. Wonder Boys
  • Bloom, Harold. How to Read and Why
  • Prose, Francine. Reading Like a Writer
  • Gaiman, Neil. American Gods
  • Gaiman, Neil and Terry Prachett. Good Omens
  • Horowitz, Anthony. Stormbreaker
  • Fforde, Jasper. The Eyre Affair
  • Moore, Christopher. A Dirty Job
  • Russo, Richard. Empire Falls
  • Vanderhaeghe, Guy. The Englishman’s Boy
  • Wright, Richard B. October
  • Prose, Francine. Goldengrove
  • Fforde, Jasper. Lost in a Good Book
  • Chabon, Michael. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
  • Le Guin, Ursula K. Powers
  • Austen, Jane and Seth Grahame-Smith. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
  • Hill, Lawrence. The Book of Negroes
  • Gessen, Keith. All the Sad Young Literary Men
  • Fforde, Jasper. The Well of Lost Plots
  • Furey, Leo. The Long Run
  • Clarke, Brock. An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England
  • Wright, Richard B. Clara Callan
  • Gallant, Mavis. A Fairly Good Time
  • Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
  • Mosley, Walter. This Year You Write Your Novel
  • Russo, Richard. Bridge of Sighs
  • Montgomery, Lucy Maud. Anne of Green Gables
  • Chabon, Michael. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
  • O’Neill, Heather. Lullabies for Little Criminals
  • Toews, Miriam. The Flying Troutmans
  • Prose, Francine. The Peaceable Kingdom
  • Robinson, Marilynne. Housekeeping
  • Fforde, Jasper. Something Rotten
  • Baker, Nicholson. The Anthologist
  • Chabon, Michael. Gentlemen of the Road
  • Chabon, Michael. A Model World and Other Stories
  • Baker, Nicholson. The Mezzanine
  • Saul, John Ralston. A Fair Country
  • Hay, Elizabeth. Late Nights on Air
  • Chabon, Michael. Maps and Legends
  • Barbery, Muriel. Gourmet Rhapsody
  • Baker, Nicholson. The Everlasting Story of Nory
  • McEwan, Ian. On Chesil Beach
  • Montgomery, Lucy Maud. Anne of Avonlea
  • Chabon, Michael. Manhood for Amateurs
  • Coupland, Douglas. Generation A
  • Barbery, Muriel. The Elegance of the Hedgehog
  • Bicknell, Jeanette. Why Music Moves Us
  • Crummey, Michael. Flesh and Blood
  • Strube, Cordelia. Lemon

Just another Karmic Koala

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The other day, the same day it was released, I downloaded Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala, and did a clean install on the Linux partition of my laptop. As you may notice if you follow this blog, I tend to do this every time there is a new Ubuntu release. It is so uneventful now (in terms of trauma) that I almost failed to mention it here. But I think it does merit mention, yet again, how refreshingly simple Ubuntu is to install and use. Each time I discover new aspects of Ubuntu, perhaps they are new features but since I don’t keep up with Ubuntu chatter I’m not aware of when they were added to the mix. And I learn one or two new things each time. For example, this time I learned how to get my Linux install to handle those region 1 and region 2 DVDs, of which I have many (the curse of starting one’s collection whilst living in the UK and then moving back to Canada), and it was so easy. Strictly speaking I don’t need Ubuntu to do that for me – we have a Windows desktop (now somewhat aging) on which we watch films. And I am not keen to support these restrictive proprietary formats even tacitly. But it is nice to know that if I had to, I could play the DVDs that I have purchased from reputable commercial outlets on the operating system of my choice.

For the moment I remain with a dual-boot Dell laptop running Windows Vista and, now, Ubuntu 9.10. Increasingly it seems less and less necessary for me to preserve my Windows partition. Perhaps when I find that I spend nearly 100% of my computing time in Ubuntu I will simply forget that I have Windows on this machine as well. And that may be the right time to jettison it altogether. Meanwhile I will continue to enjoy each new release of Ubuntu and, as ever, look forward to the next one.

Public reading – Words Worth Hearing

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Two nights in Waterloo, two nights of public readings. The second, hosted by Words Worth Books, featured three well-known writers: Catherine Gildiner, Michael Crummey, and Karen Connelly. It was a highly entertaining evening well worth the $10 admission. All three are brilliant public speakers. Connelly’s politically charged memoir of love on the Burmese border was as delicately sculpted as it was heartfelt. Gildiner was hilarious with tales of box ‘media’ stores in the USA where she has to explain to staff what a ‘reading’ is and many practised insights into the nature of the disaster that is the teenage female personality. Crummey was charming and his tale of Newfoundland ‘way, way back’ brought the evening to a rousing close. After such an evening, I cannot imagine anyone who would not be delighted to read any book by one of these writers.

Public reading – the Kitchener-Waterloo Bookstravaganza

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Last night I attended a public reading session at the Starlight Lounge in Waterloo organized by Coach House Books but with the participation of a number of other small presses including  ECW Press, Blaurock Press, and House of Anansi. The 8 authors and poets (alas only 7 showed, the inevitable effects of flu season in Ontario) each read for about 10 or 15 minutes, time enough to get through 4 or 5 short poems or enough of a chapter from a novel to whet your appetite. This was a ‘free’ event in a great location with a cash bar and plenty of atmosphere. A few of the authors were local, or had local roots, with the rest primarily coming from Toronto. I can only hope that we get more of this type of event in Waterloo.

I have a great deal of admiration for anyone who sticks with writing poetry or literature and eventually gets published in whatever form. All of those giving readings last night were experienced writers some with a number of books in their portfolio. Of course a public reading is as much about stage presence and voice and a bit of charisma. On those points I would single out for special praise Cordelia Strube, Emily Schultz, and Eric Schachter.

It is difficult to evaluate works such as these on the basis of a brief reading so I will hold off on any recommendations until I read one or more of the actual text. Most important is that the evening helped raise awareness about these writers, whose work I will be pleased to pick up in the library or a book store as time allows.

The full list of authors/poets from the evening was: David Derry, Damian Rogers, Eric Schachter, Jason Schneider, Emily Schultz, Cordelia Strube, Matthew Tierney, and Zoe Whittall.

What I look for in project governance

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A lot of my FOSS friends are busy these days thinking about Foundations, not-for-profit organisations, and Associations. This kind of thinking is almost always useful. But I do not have much of substance to contribute to such a discussion. Instead I thought I would spend a few words and minutes setting down what I look for in FOSS project governance. These are merely my personal reflections. I would not be surprised if they do not have universal application.

To be clear, I am not a vendor of software or of software services. And I do not work for a vendor of software. So the concerns of vendors, though I am certain they are perfectly valid, are not my concerns.

When I consider whether or not I want to spend any of my personal time involving myself with a FOSS project, the first thing I look for is how it governs itself. This is my time (and effort) that I am contributing. And while my time (and effort) is no more valuable than anyone else’s, it is no less valuable either. How a project values my participation is expressed, I think, through the way it governs itself.

For example, I do not want to participate in a project where the voice someone has within the project depends on something that is not directly related to the contribution they have made within this very project. It seems to me that it makes good sense for some people to have commit rights for the code and for others not to have those rights. But that only makes sense if the route to attaining commit access is a result of contributions made to the project. And it must be at least possible for me similarly to attain such rights, given sufficient contributions of my time (and effort). If that is not possible, then clearly my contributions are not being equally valued. I will go elsewhere.

Who would be in an appropriate position to judge whether my contributions were of sufficient worth to merit my gaining commit rights? I can only imagine that it would be those who themselves have already attained such a position due to the strength of their own contributions. And thus the meritocracy.

I imagine there are many occasions when a project could go in one direction or a different direction. How do such decisions get made? The particulars do not matter so much to me. What matters is whether my opinion, as a project participant, counts and whether it counts equally with the opinions of others. Yet, again, I do not think that counting equally means a project needs to devolve all decision-making to mere majority voting. It seems obvious to me that some participants will have more experience than I do. They will have made longer term or more substantial contributions. It seems right to me that they should have a greater voice in current decision-making about the direction that the project should take. In part this greater responsibility will already have been signalled by the project because these individuals will have commit access to the codebase. And even within those with commit rights, there may need to be a further level of distinction such as a project management committee. This could help the project make some of its decisions. I can even imagine projects where ultimately there is a final authority, a single individual, who casts deciding ballots when necessary. But I cannot imagine participating in such a project unless there is some route by which I too might eventually attain such a position and that such attainment would be based upon the contributions I had made to the project.

And so it comes back to whether or not my contributions of time (and effort) are equally valued. It seems to me that there are many, many ways to organise the particulars of project governance each of which express this principle. There are also, I’m sure, many examples of projects that forego such equality of participation. That’s fine. I have no wish to insist that all projects conform to my ideals. Since this is my time (and effort) we are talking about, I can simply vote with my feet. I will go elsewhere.

I could be wrong, but I suspect that over time more and more projects will move toward the view that all participation needs to be valued equally. And from this starting point they will organise themselves in different ways which they think best expresses that belief.

One final observation. It seems obvious to me that if a project does organise itself in such a way in which each participant’s contribution is valued equally, the project will want to make this clear to one and all. It may lay out just such a principle when it explains how participation in the project works. More, however, I would expect the project to be telling me how decisions are made, how commit access is attained, what I need to do to get started and how I will be able to move through whichever levels of contribution the project has deemed necessary. When a project website does not explain very, very clearly how my participation will be valued, I almost immediately head for the exit.

I hope there will be more thinking and talking about Foundations, and not-for-profit organisations, and Associations amongst the FOSS projects that I have an interest in. I think it is usually a sign that the project is heading toward some sort of clarity about its own governance. And that kind of clarity can only help, if only to help me decide whether I want to continue to participate in the project.