We work with interesting technologies which we attempt to make do novel things. Occasionally, one of us works and succeeds alone, but, far more often, we work with others.
Human nature and how we treat, are treated by, and respond to our fellow humans is likely the single most important factor in any technology project. Indeed, in any team project. That's not to say that all projects require the same approach to managing the team: Some work requires top-down command and control with explicit orders and consequences for disobedience, some is better done with self-selecting teams and kanban boards, and much is somewhere in between.
The common element is that the players have to know and respect the team's organizing principle. Once upon time, it was command and control and strict orders for everything; everyone knew this was how it was done. Everyone worked within that.
Nowadays, establishing and maintaining an organizational culture, and articulating that culture, over and over again, are vital elements to any team work.
Many of us will read what this post and roll their eyes at this human factors bullshit.
Some of us will think "Oh, yeah, that'd be good". (Some of us will mean that, others will express is sarcastically, imagining me with rose coloured glasses.)
Functional programming is YAHA (yet another human activity). Sometimes pursued alone, but sometimes in groups.
Some of those groups even manage to become communities. But are they inclusive or exclusive, and is that implicit or explicit knowledge? When I switched from Windows to Linux, I chose Ubuntu because it was explicitly inclusive with a clear code of conduct. Pissing on others strictly forbidden.
Some technologies succeed despite the way key players treat others. It happens. My guess is that most don't.
How many forks are for sociological reasons, and not for technical or legalo-business reasons? (That last phrase is obscure, I confess: I mean things like the OpenSSO/OpenAM fork, for example: Forked because of a change in governance and ownership.)
In other words, how many times are projects forked because part of the community doesn't like how the rest of the community conducts itself? How many projects fail because of how the community conducts itself?
