Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Forthcoming Book: The Art Of Community

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Some interesting comments on this thread.  The comments below refer
to / build on various previous messages in this thread but I did not
attempt to quote specifics - sorry about that. See messages with same
subject on 4/25-4/28/09 or search for:
Forthcoming Book 2009

Did you ever wish you could meet someone who has posted in case in-person
you might be able better understand where they are coming from?  Brian, if
you ever get to Minneapolis and are so inclined, look me up. (No Craig, I
do not plan to get to the Cohousing Conference this year.  Maybe some day;
the last one I attended was 1997 and 1995 before that.)

I'll use accronym FOSS -- "free open source software" below.
It is one of many abbreviations in common use :)

A main difference between the FOSS community context and the Cohousing
community is the high degree to which interaction in FOSS is computer
mediated from a distance.  But there are local FOSS related groups and
many (international) conferences where in person contact takes place.  I
do not think anyone argues online contact is better than in person contact
but it is better than no contact and as a supplement.

The way FOSS folks use online contact may have aspects that cohousing
folks could find useful.  In particular my guess is that FOSS folks use
real time communications (like "IM" - instant messaging) much more and
more effectively than cohousing folks. FOSS folks usually use "IRC"
Internet Relay Chat whic is more group oriented
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irc

BTW it is my opinion that real time communications is more effective than
email for many uses (particularly scheduling things)  but it is much more
difficult to set up because it requires both people present at the same
time and there is no one standard protocol (choose from AIM, Yahoo chat,
IRC, ...)  Of course the old realtime mode is the telephone and for some
people is cheaper or "free" these days. Note that my phone number is at
the bottom of most every message I email.

Of course the Open Source and Cohousing contexts are hugely
different and yet DESPITE this it seems to me there may be
some potential to learn form each other.  Obviously Open Source
folks could learn more from cohousing than the reverse :)

Yes the anarchic nature of FOSS (and btw Minneapolis) can be frustrating.
The tendency for subgroups to go in many directions, in particular, seems
to me to be a net disadvantage. It seems to me that the legal constraints
on cohousing are often a problem as well as a benefit.  Of course Open
Source is based on a creative legal construct - the General Public License
(GPL) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License which uses
some aspects of copyright (protecting intellectual property from private
exploitation) while turning others on their heads (monopolization of
intellectual property). Of course there are now many variants on the GPL :)

As others have pointed out some cohousing folks do move away ("split") as
a result of differences tho it is indeed harder than to split in a
comparable (?) FOSS situation.  I think that when someone leaves cohousing
over conflict that in a sense the problem is "unresolved" probably
"forever". I would think learning how to resolve differences rather than
cause splits should be a goal for both.  Tho indeed there are times when a
split is the logical thing to do tho maybe splits that are "better" and
more cooperative could be arrived at.

It seems to me that "An appreciation of rule failure" (Brian 4/27 8am)
can also lead to more flexible, sophisticated and creative rules
rather than the simplistic rejection of rules.

Regarding the perception that cohousing has disproportionately
more computer programmers (or UU's for that matter)...
I wonder how true it is (I know of no objective statistics)
tho I suspect there is some truth to ti.  I suspect it is more
of a corelation than causal.  That is it migh be as simple as
programmers move more often and therefore are more likely to find
it possible to move to cohousing.  Or they tend to be well paid and
can afford to live in cohousing.  But those are just guesses.

Fred

--
Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
Communications for Justice -- Free, superior listserv's w/o ads:
http://justcomm.org      My Link Pg: http://fholson.cohousing.org
612-588-9532 (7am-10pm CST/CDT)   Email: fholson at cohousing.org