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theo-armour edited this page May 2, 2012 · 1 revision

The Git model. (as in Linus Torvald's new opensource protocol...) This is what Ward is doing with Smallest Federated Wiki.

In the older open-source model, e.g. Wikipedia, there is a central repository, managed by a proprietary entity, and everyone works on bits and pieces in open-source fashion. But this is curated by the committers.

In the Git model, the entire structure can be freely copied ("forked") and re-constituted by a separate team. Then they can work on it, make changes, and get the whole thing ("whole" being key) to operate in a different way.

Then some or all can be re-merged with the older whole, through a "pull request" -- or it can stay separate, and perhaps grow to be as large as the older whole in user community -- or larger.

This is what patterns have needed, as Chris himself has pointed out. A language needs to be applied to a specific context, and adapted to it. Only then, the patterns can be exchanged, and then re-adapted to another context. So you have "project pattern languages" that function as "forks" of other languages, then re-written. And maybe they are reunited with "pull requests" -- or maybe they remain relatively autonomous (but still shareable).

Note that natural languages work like this, not like the old model. There is not one central agency that controls languages, allowing individuals to propose additions, as in Wikipedia. (Well, except in France! ;)

Instead it's the Git model. Each of us can take the whole language, and work on it within sub-communities. We can add our own jargon words, or lingo, or nuanced meanings. Then those can re=join a larger community at some point.

I think this is an exciting model -- and Ward is doing very exciting things with it through Smallest Federated Wiki. What I think we can do is to pick up that thread, and as it were, "fork" his project!

Clone this wiki locally