Open Source Design blog on Medium (Join the Medium publication here!)

[razetime]

I have created a Medium publication for Open source, design, which could help our organization reach more people, and contribute more to the design community. It lives at https://medium.com/open-source-design, and I think we can put all our posts in the http://opensourcedesign.net/articles/ page into this medium page. Anyone interested in publishing, or have any ideas?

[plastelina]

great one! :+1:

my account: https://medium.com/@karolinaferenz (if you want to follow me) , I've got several publications in draft...waiting for my laptop to come back form repair and will be ready to publish :).

[simonv3]

I'm very curious about how some other people on here feel about Medium, considering it is not very Open Sourcey at all, I think Medium would even own the articles?

I'm all for writing articles and publishing them on our own feed and then copying them to medium. But I think we should try to make sure we at least have our own copies of everything.

[plastelina]

I think medium is one of the best ways to reach out to designers, I met epic people there! Fantastic UX/UI, interaction and web designers as well as developers. In my opinion, looking at this subject - that open source should only use open source make it CLOSE SOURCE, because you dont have an option to actually chat to people and TELL them that there is an OPEN SOURCE community for designer...I only found out 2 years ago open source and it was by an accident.

Also...why everything have to be discussed to the level of insanity? If you dont like medium - don't use it, find alternative and share it here! Simples. If you like it - use it.

Yes, I used to use gimp and few other programs but that was over 15 years ago and these were just beginning of what is happening now. Now open source design tools are epic and they need more shout out - medium is great for that.

[elioqoshi]

Medium supports Creative Commons, so that's enough reason for me to support them (apart their new ugly logo honestly)

[simonv3]

@plastelina Open Source is a Very Opinionated Community. The divergent opinions about what open software means is what attracts people to it. Debate and conversation about how to best make software free is a critical part of the conversation. Telling people to not have that conversation is not productive because it will happen. Open Source, like everything in life, is a series of compromises. When you're talking to people working in Open Source, this conversation is going to happen - if I hadn't brought it up, someone else would have.

And like I said - I'm for doing this, as long as we make sure that anything written under the Open Source Design banner also has a home on our own site. There's a variety of reasons for this, and Medium being or not being Open Source is just one of them. Medium is a venture backed company that - as far as I'm aware - doesn't make any money yet. What if, like Rdio, it shuts down next week? Or, like Twitter, is starting to have to lay off its employees because it doesn't make enough money? Both Twitter and Rdio are fantastic products and have changed things for a lot of people. Medium is like that too. But even if it supports CC like @elioqoshi mentions, I think owning the things written under the OSD makes a lot of sense.

@elioqoshi do you have a link for the support of creative commons?

[simonv3]

Also, please, if not being able to write on Medium is what's been preventing people writing about Open Source Design, please start writing on Medium. If you tell me you wrote it, I'll gladly copy it over to the articles myself.

[elioqoshi]

@simonv3 here: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/45495

[simonv3]

@elioqoshi That's awesome, thanks!

[rdbartlett]

I wrote a post to share my design process. I use a lot of proprietary software to make open source software, heh.

I'm happy to copy it over to Medium to get this publication started if y'all think it fits.

[jancborchardt]

We could crosspost yeah, but the original posts should always be on opensourcedesign.net. These pages are tools to reach more people, but for actual writing and publishing there’s great open source platforms already like Ghost.

[simonv3]

qb on IRC just pointed me to the fact that you can easily import things to Medium here: https://medium.com/p/import

[simonv3]

@rdbartlett I think that'd be cool! Though, in the spirit of Medium being about written things (is it?) do you have a transcript version of the talk? I'm not sure what the general consensus is on posting videos on Medium?

[rdbartlett]

@simonv3 it's mostly me demonstrating how I use my particular combination of tools, so it doesn't translate too well into text.

[rdbartlett]

@razetime I'm wondering if, rather than just porting my story across to Medium, I reframe it into a sort of introductory blog post? Like, hi I'm Rich, this is why I care about open source design, here's some talks and articles and projects I've had a hand in...

[rdbartlett]

I'm imagining that lots of people in this community could do a similar thing. Something more engaging, sharable, and narrative-based than the brief bios we already have.

[simonv3]

That would be pretty cool. We could potentially stagger the posts as well - just for continuous returns? We can also create a special layout on our website for this kind of story "profiles" or something.

@razetime @rdbartlett @plastelina @elioqoshi would you all be interested in spearheading some sort of initiative like this? Maybe create a list of questions that people should try to answer? Provide some example posts?

[simonv3]

(Also @razetime if you could share some publishing rights to anyone who's interested in maintaining this that would be grand).

[rdbartlett]

@plastelina I'd love to read about how you accidentally discovered open source :dancer:

[rdbartlett]

So instead of doing that, I just wrote a totally new post. Very keen to hear feedback :)

https://medium.com/@richdecibels/open-source-design-just-steal-everything-5c44ca793721#.z2is2ra8r

@razetime do you want to add me as an editor on that publication?

[elioqoshi]

@simonv3 Yes, I'd love to!

[razetime]

Sorry that I did not respond, but I was sleeping at the time at the replies came in. I'll make sure that everybody who is interested, is added. Any more thoughts?

On Sat, Nov 21, 2015 at 1:36 PM, Elio Qoshi notifications@github.com wrote:

@simonv3 https://github.com/simonv3 Yes, I'd love to!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/opensourcedesign/organization/issues/17#issuecomment-158611407 .

[razetime]

Everyone who is interested can join, as a writer. If you write better posts, you will become an editor. @plastelina @rdbartlett You're in.

[razetime]

And @simonv3 I'd like to take an initiative like this. We can write about how we discovered open source, and (possibly) design. Everybody who wants to publish, just keep one thing in mind: Write about Open Source Design.

[plastelina]

@simonv3 thank you for clarifying the issue for me :D. You are missing the point, every community is strongly opinionated. What I was trying to point out is that you, pretty much always diss a lot of initiatives to push open source design to the open world. I'm not trying to dismiss what Open Source sand for, I'm trying to come up with an ideas to spread the word and as you mentioned yourself - it will attract specific people, not every designer / developer will join. It's a basic PR ( as in public relations not push repository ;))move. /end of rant ;).

Also, there was no debate about opening twitter account and there is an issue about opening a medium account!? C'mon, medium is actually one of those rare tool that attracts designers and yes, it might be shut down at some point in the future, but why not use its capacity to spread the word and educate people what open source is. There are a lot of open source contributors to medium already.

I'm writing articles on Medium as myself, but I'm happy to contribute to Open Source Design Medium account. ARGH! need my computer back, feeling like I've lost a arm...

[razetime]

@plastelina no need to hurry, let's be slow and steady. And plus, Medium IS making money, with native advertising in posts, but I still think that is not enough. So let's keep an original with ourselves, and put a copy of our articles on Medium.

IF you allow, @simonv, we can keep some of the articles exclusive to medium, though.

[simonv3]

@razetime This isn't about me allowing it or not, this is about building a community consensus on whether we should move forward with something.

@plastelina it sounds like we should hash things out in some form of private conversation - I never meant to make it sound like I'm dissing ideas - in fact, I feel like I've been supportive of most of the initiatives proposed, just cautious about most of the ones that aren't open source. Please feel free to DM me on IRC or on Twitter if you want to continue this conversation without clogging up everyone's notifications / emails.

Communal Decision Making

We're not Anonymous (rag tag bunch of people with only the loosest affiliation), and I don't think we should be. I think it's important that every one in the community gets an opportunity to voice concerns, and that the Open Source Design community needs to at least have some form of consensus on what it stands for. This is exactly why I think we need some more structure - I've raised issues on bylaws, codes of conducts, how to reach consensus before. Please please please give your input on those issues. If the majority of people in this group feel that we should use closed source tools like Slack and Medium because they'll achieve those goals better, then maybe we should. But if that majority of people is silent and doesn't speak up about these things, how are the people doing things meant to know that?

(This is why I thought it was a good idea to put the logo thing up to a vote, it allows quiet people to give their opinion without having to get into this conversation)

I have no idea who controls the Twitter account. We should have probably had a public conversation about that too.

[simonv3]

@rdbartlett I like that post! @razetime thanks for assigning people editors. We should possibly link the posts to Twitter as well?

[raucao]

IF you allow, @simonv, we can keep some of the articles exclusive to medium, though.

Why would you keep something exclusive to Medium, when it's easy not to?

[GarthDB]

I've been publishing articles to both opendesign.foundation and Medium. It works out well us, but we go where the designers are and don't really have the requirement of only using open source projects.

[simonv3]

And maybe we do want to be more like Anonymous (everyone does what they think is best), and let the Open Design Foundation be the structured entity? On Nov 21, 2015 10:45 AM, "Garth Braithwaite" notifications@github.com wrote:

I've been publishing articles to both opendesign.foundation and Medium https://medium.com/design-open. It works out well us, but we go where the designers are and don't really have the requirement of only using open source projects.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/opensourcedesign/organization/issues/17#issuecomment-158671564 .

[GarthDB]

I'm not sure how you go about deciding that. It seems like most people are acting like you're in charge Simon but it seems like you're trying hard to not have anyone in charge.

— Sent from Mailbox

On Sat, Nov 21, 2015 at 11:59 AM, Simon notifications@github.com wrote:

And maybe we do want to be more like Anonymous (everyone does what they think is best), and let the Open Design Foundation be the structured entity? On Nov 21, 2015 10:45 AM, "Garth Braithwaite" notifications@github.com wrote:

I've been publishing articles to both opendesign.foundation and Medium https://medium.com/design-open. It works out well us, but we go where the designers are and don't really have the requirement of only using open source projects.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/opensourcedesign/organization/issues/17#issuecomment-158671564 .

---

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/opensourcedesign/organization/issues/17#issuecomment-158672415

[raucao]

You kinda lost me there. What's the discussion now?

[GarthDB]

I think we should build some bike sheds.

— Sent from Mailbox

On Sat, Nov 21, 2015 at 1:00 PM, Sebastian Kippe notifications@github.com wrote:

You lost me there. What's the discussion now?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/opensourcedesign/organization/issues/17#issuecomment-158677824

[simonv3]

I've got some yaks that need shaving. On Nov 21, 2015 12:01 PM, "Garth Braithwaite" notifications@github.com wrote:

I think we should build some bike sheds.

— Sent from Mailbox

On Sat, Nov 21, 2015 at 1:00 PM, Sebastian Kippe <notifications@github.com

wrote:

You lost me there. What's the discussion now?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:

https://github.com/opensourcedesign/organization/issues/17#issuecomment-158677824

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/opensourcedesign/organization/issues/17#issuecomment-158677858 .

[simonv3]

Why would you keep something exclusive to Medium, when it's easy not to?

@skddc I had completely missed this. I agree. Is there a reason that we'd keep articles exclusively on Medium @razetime?

@rdbartlett do you mind if we cross post your post to the Articles section here?

[rdbartlett]

Certainly, so whatever you like with the content, just link back to me :)

For the record, I'm 100x more motivated to write and publish on Medium over any other platform I've used. It's just a delightful and effective tool.

On 11:10, Sun, 22/11/2015 Simon notifications@github.com wrote:

Why would you keep something exclusive to Medium, when it's easy not to?

@skddc https://github.com/skddc I had completely missed this. I agree. Is there a reason that we'd keep articles exclusively on Medium?

@rdbartlett https://github.com/rdbartlett do you mind if we cross post your post to the Articles section here?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/opensourcedesign/organization/issues/17#issuecomment-158685968 .

[simonv3]

Plus, I like that it still gives the authors a bit more credit - the current Articles are pretty anonymous.

[evalica]

We are using lots of proprietary tools in our day to day life, so finding open alternatives can be hard, sometimes impossible. We could decide not to use them at all, but if some people are more productive or experimented in using them, it's fine.

But I agree, if it's something done in the name and in the interest of Open Source Design community, it needs to be cross-posted here. In order to keep things findable for everyone and to expand this community, we need to have a central hub. In order to keep things simpler I prefer to have only one place that I need to monitor. If people don't want to cross-post here, than maybe they should keep those articles in private blogs.

[evalica]

We could find ways if needed to automate the cross-posting from Medium to our website.

[raucao]

Certainly, so whatever you like with the content, just link back to me :) For the record, I'm 100x more motivated to write and publish on Medium over any other platform I've used. It's just a delightful and effective tool.

I've heard that a lot, and there are actually open-source versions of their editor UI. Maybe someone can whip sth up, so that the experience is as nice when writing on the OSD site first. ;)

We could find ways if needed to automate the cross-posting from Medium to our website.

That should be possible! Unfortunately (just looking at the first feed real quick, no deeper research), it looks like they only provide teasers via RSS, which removes the obvious option for syndication and kind of makes them look even more like a walled garden to me. :/

[razetime]

@skddc There is a nice markdown editor, called http:// prose.io, which gives you a simply amazing writing experience. I would not say that there is a reason to keep any of the articles only on Medium though.

On Sun, Nov 22, 2015 at 4:49 AM, Sebastian Kippe notifications@github.com wrote:

Certainly, so whatever you like with the content, just link back to me :) For the record, I'm 100x more motivated to write and publish on Medium over any other platform I've used. It's just a delightful and effective tool.

I've heard that a lot, and there are actually open-source versions of their editor UI. Maybe someone can whip sth up, so that the experience is as nice when writing on the OSD site first. ;)

We could find ways if needed to automate the cross-posting from Medium to our website.

That should be possible! Unfortunately (just looking at the first feed real quick, no deeper research), it looks like they only provide teasers via RSS https://medium.com/feed/open-source-design, which removes the obvious option for syndication and kind of makes them look even more like a walled garden to me. :/

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/opensourcedesign/organization/issues/17#issuecomment-158689996 .

[jancborchardt]

There’s also, as mentioned above, the simple blogging platform https://ghost.org – nicely designed and runs on open source.

Of course we could just use Medium and Slack etc. in this community as well but then where’s the point in our work if we don’t use it – especially when there are well-designed alternatives?

[GarthDB]

The most obvious issue to using something like ghost is hosting. Paid hosting introduces money, which doesn't guarantee complications, but it has potential to.

[raucao]

Ghost offers hosting and is itself a design-focussed open source project. I'm sure they'd gladly host OSD for free if you ask them.

[GarthDB]

If you can get free hosting that would be awesome.

[simonv3]

@skddc @GarthDB I just pointed out that we could potentially also reach out to the Sandstorm people for hosting, and then we can host all sorts of things on their grains as well -> #19.

@bnvk and @jancborchardt asked in https://github.com/opensourcedesign/opensourcedesign.github.io/pull/33 whether we should post on the OSD website first before posting to Medium - or at least saying on Medium This post was original published on OSD (or some such).

[GarthDB]

Hey - Wordpress.com is opensource now too, just to muddy the waters further.

[jancborchardt]

@GarthDB »now« – you’re kidding, right? ;) Wordpress has been open source since forever.

[GarthDB]

@jancborchardt Wordpress, yes. Wordpress.com, no, until now.

[aoloe]

hey guys, this is a ticket about putting something on medium, not a way to chit chat... really, you urgently need to get to an agreement on which chat platform you want to use and stop filling up everybody's inbox / github dashboard! (and i'd prefer not to unsubscribe the repositories... but i will have to if i keep on getting 200+ pings a day from you!)