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2008-03-08

On the Giving Away

Technorati
Tags: orcmid, civility, open
standards, culture, open
scholarship, insular
institutions, apology, DIN
working groups

I behaved badly.   Very badly.

Apology
Necessary

Seeing
What Drives Me

Appropriate
Actions

1. Apology Necessary

On Thursday, March 6, I learned from Brian
Jones's blog that a DIN (German Standards organization) working group
has provided its first working paper draft on their study of ODF-OOXML
translation.  The PDF can be downloaded at the DIN NA
043-01-34-01 VT Working Group Translation 29500-26300 page.

When I downloaded the draft, I threw a tantrum.  I was outraged:
hurt, upset, and indignant.  I was dismayed by the ISO/IEC
proprietary notice on the second page of the document.  And I vented
my disdain in a comment
on Brian Jones's blog and an update to my February 6 "Harmonization
Hope Chest" post.  I had completely gone off the rails over a
small matter, something that should have been no surprise to me, and I
said insulting things about the DIN activity.  And I posted quite
deliberately while angry, also failing to read the ISO/IEC notice more
carefully first.

I'm apologizing.  Right here, right now.  My
behavior was uncalled for and unprofessional.  I also created a
diversion from what I should have been observing and commenting on, the
welcome visibility of this valuable activity.  I apologize.

I have communicated my apology to the two individuals who seem to be
behind the creation and conduct of the DIN effort.

I have cleaned up my statement on the Harmonization Hope Chest
post.

I will add a link to this apology near my comment on Brian Jones's
blog.

I'm promising.   That I will not go off
half-cocked and jump to bone-headed conclusions.  And if I stumble, I
will clean it up.  You can hold me to account for that, whoever you
are.

With regard to the DIN working group, I am promising that I will be
respectful of their work and the contribution that it makes.  I will
also bite my tongue and re-read (several times) material that I find
myself having a knee-jerk reaction to.  I will use
instant-indignation as a warning sign to me, not as an occasion for
venting outrage.

In all matters, I will be civil and respectful.  I promise.

That's all there is to say about that.  The apology stands
alone.

The remainder of this post is about what I learned about myself and the
blind spot that I have. I do not wish to be excused for that. I am looking
at conduct that can avoid that pitfall in the future.  I am putting
that here because it is the reflection on my inexcusable behavior that led
me to see this.

2. Seeing What Drives Me

I just want to give it away.  I am in a stage in
my vocation where my focus is on paying it forward and giving it all
away.  I love computing and information processing and the experience
I have gained in the fifty years since Bob Deverill showed
me a computer program in-the-making at a table in Caltech's Dabney
House lounge.

I just want to give it away.  There are
contributions I want to make.  They itch at me.  I don't know
whether they are valuable.  I do know if I don't contribute, it will
be of no possible use to anyone.  I will be ashamed to leave this
life having failed to give away everything I could at every
opportunity.  I'm at (or beyond) the point where I need to pay
attention to that.

I just want to give it away.  I'm not taking a
vow of poverty or anything like that.  I can always use work that
provides subsistence and preservation of retirement funds.  The most
gratifying work is where I can give it away (and not hide it in the bowels
of proprietary possession somewhere).  That is an useful way to
prioritize on something that is immediately useful to someone.

I just want to give it away.  I have not been
honoring this drive.  I allow too many distractions, I attempt too
many things at once, and I am careless about maintaining focus.  And
I know I must ration my energy and stamina.  That was probably always
true, but my body tells me every day how much it is true now.  (I
used to think all-nighters were a sign of my strength and it is shocking
to realize that I have not had the capacity for that for a few years
now.  These days I take naps and pray for an undisturbed night's
sleep.)

I just want to give it away.  I am my own worst
enemy.  I react to events as if they are denying me the ability to
contribute when I am the one that is taking my attention away from what I
say is important to me and the opportunity for accomplishing that.
(This is what I saw about my stupid reaction to the DIN working-paper
copyright notice.)

I just want to give it away.  People who know me
have heard me say this.  Yet I don't think I have declared myself out
where it matters: out where I want to give it away.  I see that I
need to repair that.  This is a public commitment.  I will not
be stingy about it.

3. Appropriate Actions

When there's a breakdown, as this incident was for me, a great question
for me is to question what there is about the proposed action that will
lead to a different outcome.  I see three things:

I will train myself to examine every activity for its
giving-away:  How is this giving it away?  Is this
the most valuable contribution I could be making at this
time?

I will organize my work for giving it away.  I
live in an awful clutter.  I also spend too much time on get-ready
activities.  I don't mean envisioning I mean obsessive organization
of clutter.  I can simplify and streamline.  I don't use my
computers as the powerful tools they are.  There's way too much muda.

I will organized for others to play too.  It
is useful that I have my own ball and bat.  It is not useful that I
don't play catch with anyone.  I have useful output processes but
not useful participation and engagement processes.  I keep saying I
will remedy that.  I am making that a giving it away
priority.  This is also a great way to have the support of others
in checking on my giving it away.

I already have outlets.  This is the ridiculous
part of my distress over the DIN working-paper.  I was so wrapped up
in "they are preventing my contribution by making me submit to this" that
I forgot I already have structures for dealing with that.  I can
always contribute to work on document interchange, document-process
interoperability, and format harmonization in ways that are not so
confining:

Public posting of my original writings under Creative
Commons Attribution license.  Others are free to quote,
reuse, and re-purpose with only the simple scholarly/accountability
requirement of satisfying the attribution requirement.

Public posting of my original software code under the BSD
template license.  This makes contributions as available
as the Creative Commons license.

Heck, I'm already creating my
own place for that and others have provided SourceForge projects that
operate under these conditions.  So there was nothing real to be
torqued-off about.  I made up something that doesn't even matter if
it were the case.

Those are the ways I already avoid high-friction, low-contribution
situations.  If I had something that I wanted to have freely
available and not locked into, e.g., the ISO/IEC copyright restrictions, I
can put it out here and the DIN folk are free to use it and reference it
and so on, as is everyone else.  There's no problem.

Furthermore, there are many contributions that I don't need to assure
availability of in any respect (such as bug reports, feedback on
proposals, review of specifications, etc.).  I can do that if the
friction isn't too high.  And after I've answered the important
giving-away questions for myself.

One more thing.  I take some things way too
seriously (certainly as illustrated by my DIN outburst).
There's  a practice that I know about, yet I have never taken it on
as my own.  Even though our eldest son is a recovering rock musician
and we often talk about the twelve steps, I have overlooked the Serenity
Prayer:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot
be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the
wisdom to distinguish the one from the other

I am putting that where I see it and say it every day.

This article's title is inspired
by the Pink Floyd hymn-like song, "On the
Turning Away."  I don't know why, it just kept coming up as
I was pondering what I wanted to say here.

I'd not
paid careful attention to the lyrics or the "Turning Away" theme
until choosing to mention it here.  I thought I'd better check
to see if there was any harmony with "On the Giving Away."  The
resonance goes beyond the titles.

If I could have been at a
Pink Floyd concert, it would have been for the "Delicate Sound of
Thunder" tour.  (The Berlin performance of "The Wall" is in a
completely separate category, of course.)

When I reviewed
this video in my home office, Vicki shouted down for me to turn it
up.  That is not what she usually asks for and I first turned
it down so I could hear what she was saying and find out what
wouldn't be too loud (maybe headphones for me).  She wanted it
the louder the better.  Who knew?. Vicki asked if there is more
of this.

posted by orcmid at 3/08/2008
11:48:00 AM

Comments:

Hmm, a
recovering rock musician on one side, and Vicki yelling "turn it up" from
the other. Glad to hear I'm not the only one whose life is
complicated.

Nice post ... unnecessary, in my opinion, as you've
been one of the only consistently civil and respectful voices in the
document formats debate, but I think it's good for people to know where
you're coming from. Not everyone is out to slay a dragon, make a killing,
or take the world by storm, regardless of how it appears some days.

#
posted by  Doug: 10 March, 2008
09:27

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