All aboard for the FLOSS Community interaction! (part 1)

There is this great thing in the FLOSS world called the "Community" which you may note has a capital C. It is where people interact, sometimes brilliantly, at times in what has been referred to as "Epic FAIL". In this piece I try to explore who the community is and how people and organisations both formal and informal could interact, and what their ground rules might be in some cases, after all it would be unfair of anyone to presume that the same rule sets apply to all groups. To get to the heart of this issue, perhaps it would be useful to define a community: A community is a social group of sharing an environment, usually with shared interests. There are of course many other definitions, however this amalgam of a few adds yet another definition and may be rationalised as it fits our purpose. Typically there are groups that call themselves the "free software community" or some derivation of same. This group can be divided into several sub groups where people are part of one or more of the sub groups. These groups are the development community, the user community, and the activist community. With these broad brush strokes, let us venture forth and explore a subset of their wants needs and an aims. People are asked to get involved and contribute, and the first question a new comer has is what can I do, this thing looks huge vast and complex, and there is so much where can I contribute. If you are a software developer then coding is the place where you might be able to do the most good. Delving into the source fixing bugs seems logical, but it too has it's rule base, a method to attach to the list of things to do and to do the list of things that need to be done. If you are a user you can use the software, report bugs and write down how you use the software, so the next person has less to write. Given the level of change it is interesting to do this work and see your earlier work evolve in the hands of others, get a wider audience and hopefully have a quality improvement in tandem with the above. If you are an activist you can try to support the overall community or you can strike out to mark an niche your own. In all cases people tend to aim to do least damage, and being human they can err quite a lot en route to their destination. The best way to react is carefully. The person you are dealing with may be anywhere on the planet and not used to your culture. It is easier not to offend than have to work at starting over.