Re: Infrastructures.Org rework

On 22/02/06 12:43 -0800, Steve Traugott wrote:
> 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

And I have been STFW for this for the past few hours.

> 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

We need both patterns, and anti-patterns [1].

> 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.

<snip>

> 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

Choose a creative commons license. Or offer a choice of two or three
possible ones you find acceptable, and we can then choose one of those 
on the list.

I don't know how much I can contribute (still have a lot to learn), but
I will try and write as much as I can.

> contribution?  I hate doing it that way, but it's the only way we'd be

Alternatively authors could retain copyright, but grant anyone the right
to publish the text (including for profit).

> 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.
> 
I hope it does work out well.

<snip>

Devdas Bhagat

[1] The Anti-patterns book describes the way software development fails,
and gives common illustrations (and solutions). A similar toolkit for
administrative tasks is called for.