Maintain an open source project collaboratively with TWiki

Peter Thoeny
TWiki.org

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     Last modified: March 15, 2005

Abstract
There are many online communities which deliberate and make decisions by using Wiki software. As a case study, this talk examines how Wiki supports online deliberation in the TWiki software development community. A Wiki is a natural fit for open source communities since Wikis are virtual rooms where people with similar interests meet and converse. Open source communities are virtual by nature, and they often work by conventions. It is possible to support these conventions and processes with a structured Wiki, where content is driven by Wiki applications.

A Wiki is a good vehicle to loosely organize discussion in a community. Content in a typical Wiki grows in an organic and free manner. People create many hyperlinks to related content, which is a natural process with WikiWord links. This improves the browsing experience.

This talk includes a live demo on the TWiki.org website showing how the TWiki developers communicate mainly through their Wiki. A workflow helps developers keep track of new features from brainstorming idea through finished implementation. Each feature is documented, discussed and status tracked on a page. When needed, on-line polling comes into play to take the pulse of community opinion about a particular feature. All the infrastructure helps keep the content organized and structured, e.g. a release dashboard can show the progress of the current release in real time.