“Breakin’ da law!” by Gardner

Prelude
Ok so technically I am not allowed to talk about anything that I do for CouchSurfing International ever. For the rest of time. By signing the NDA I entered a legal contract. If I break that contract I could be held financially liable for any damages caused. A good resource to find out more is the wikipedia article which covers breach of contract

This situation could be avoided if our source code was released under an open license and we didn’t have any secrets. An open license will also attract more developers to the project which may be unable to sign the NDA due to other contractual obligations or perhaps some zealous sense of righteousness.

I think that even the NDA may fall under trade secrets since there is no link to it on the site which would be that just by making this post I have already broken the law. So just by telling you that I signed a contract which stated:

“Gardner Bickford agrees not to disclose to any Prohibited Persons any Trade Secrets and Confidential Information, directly or indirectly, and whether for compensation or no compensation, without the express written consent of Company. Any such written consent shall be strictly construed in its scope and interpretation against disclosure of Trade Secrets and Confidential Information, shall be strictly construed in its scope to maximize the definition of Prohibited Persons, and shall be strictly construed in its scope to limit the amount of information which constitutes Trade Secrets and Confidential Information.” which is available at
http://couchsurfing.com/nda.html could be a breach of contract.

So I am now an outlaw. I will continue to break the law by letting you folks know what I have worked on while staying here at the NZ collective:

---

Saturday was St. Patty’s day. Sunday was relatively painful and I don’t believe that my brain was functioning at full capacity. This would explain why I created the goal for myself to close all of the bugs assigned to me this week. Yesterday I closed one from January and another that I submitted myself. Today I am wondering if I should prioritize my action item list and fix the glaring issue of password security on CS. There’s currently no requirements for new user accounts being created which means that users can use weak passwords. What’s worse even still is that passwords are sent over the network in clear text which means that on a wireless network at a cafe or even here at the collective someone could snatch the passwords right out of the air.

Now that I think about it I think I’ll fix that today.

Gardner

Greetings from the Laundry Room

A fairly typical day in my Collective life, hugely subjective but for once trying to capture the full spectrum of daily existence over here (not just computers, bugs and the groupies (Brainstormers & Cockroaches) for ONCE! (NOTE: wanna shout out shorter lines in the future but this should give some idea of what’s life all about out here)

Waking up to wander into the living room where I’m greeted with some gruntings over my dish-duties last night (which are later resolved in a fair & equal way and we all learn a bit about in-house communications!). Breakfast of champions, in my case tea, cheese&tomato sandwiches. Backing off to my “office” at the laundry room with determined intent to get back on top of my emails & TODO items in CS code after a few days of (well-deserved!) chillout & movie-watching when having a flu. Pointing Callum towards our past efforts to get blogs on the site & shouting out to get Bill started with the design team.

As the collective approaches the end, it’s about time I start my personal preparations towards becoming a respectable even if temporary citizen of New Zealand by hitching a ride to town with Bridget, Kristen and Hannah to obtain my tax number (IRD). We go shopping a whopping mount of food to last us all for a whole week (to make sure: we only get the most basic stuff and are very price-concious, and Bridget makes sure we stay that way! . I decide to treat my housemates with some cheap-ass cookies (as I’ve not felt I’ve been a really good housemate lately)

Back at the house I get back to my tech duties: answering some people approaching me on the pages I “own” on the site (ownership simply meaning I’m the one who has worked on that particular page for the most over the past few weeks / months – check it up on the right-down corner of each CS page!), check up on meetings code changes made by our new developer POISONS, fix some things on ambassador’s home page and write up minutes of the Tech Team meeting last week. Bigger code changes shall have to wait until I feel a bit better…

As it is customary for the CSC, work-time and recreation are often interrelated, so at sunset I find myself doing the last bits of yoga session by our certified instructor Joshua (who’s the least Texan Texan I know . Finding my inbox with a well-suited job notification Looking forward to a dinner by Kristen and some chatting with my fellow CSC members.

Anu

Kicking Ass and Taking Names

Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys! This collective may appear to be in New Zealand, but really it is worldwide. We are committed to inviting you to our meetings, not merely to learn about what we are doing, but to fully join our team of technicians and brainstormers and fundraisers and whatever else. Couchsurfing is a global movement — an up-and-coming superpower, really — and anyone with the skillz can throw down. We’ve got an IRC channel (freenode.net/#couchsurfing); the wiki; a new wiki template for feature requests; a public agenda (also on the wiki) etc.

I love watching this stuff (the wiki, etc) work, as people who are not admins get deeply involved in the movement, because the barrier to becoming really helpful–has become so low.

Anyone with something clear and well-defined to offer that wants help getting involved can call the collective, or email me through couchsurfing (joe_edelman).

I am so happy to be here with Leo, Steve, Elsa, and Kasper. What a rad bunch.

Don’t Hate the Wiki, Be the Wiki

Saturday night I didn’t go out into town. Nelson’s small but lively. Loads of good people. Friday night was exciting. Saturday
night’s probably even better. But instead Leo, Steve and I had amazing conversations about what CouchSurfing is, what it can be and how to get there. My knowledge of and experience with wikis and free software
projects comes to great use.

During the Montreal Collective people often felt a bit out of the loop. We decided to use the CouchSurfing Wiki for some brainstorm sessions as soon as we’ll have internet here. This way people outside the Collective will not only be able to follow what’s being concocted but also to finetune, reuse and remix. Anyone interested gets the possibility to read what’s going on and to Collectively cooperate with people at the Collective. This Collective should show that it’s possible and beneficial to work in a transparent, decentralized way.

On wikis it’s important to avoid phrases like “I think”, so that people are more tempted to click edit and change something. From Ego to Collective.

Noone will be forced to use the Wiki. But many people at the Collective in Nelson will be using the Wiki. We’ll show that there are amazing possibilities. There are over 130.000 CouchSurfers. Many of them highly creative, intelligent, flexible, open minded. We should give them opportunities to participate, to think about problems, to come up with solutions unthought of before. CS Groups are good for discussions, but not for associative, collective thinking, not for
synopses of discussions where 50 people have ideas. Wiki means “fast”, but it’s also cooperative.

The Wiki is about intercultural understanding. People from different background are working together on creating pages on almost anything related to CouchSurfing.

Some people are not at all happy with the CouchSurfing Wiki. I’ve been asking for direct feedback, but didn’t get any. So I have to put myself in an anti-wiki mindset. The only arguments I can think of are:

* CouchSurfers are not smart enough to read Wiki pages, let alone edit
them.
* The Wiki doesn’t look enough like CouchSurfing.
* Vandalism, or CouchSurfers editing pages with bad intentions.
(We actually had one case of vandalism, and remarkably, was from the same country as the person who is shouting out loudest, though only in private communication, and unfortunately not with me, that the Wiki is “external shit”.)

But these couldn’t seriously be the reasons for people to “hate the Wiki” [sic]. Which makes me wonder, what is hate? According to Steve it’s insecurity. He might be right. I’m still waiting for good arguments.

At least Steve and Leo don’t hate the Wiki.
P.S. Since 20 minutes we’re connected in the House!

Arriving in Nelson

I am excited. Yesterday I took the ferry from Wellington to Picton. I was fortunate enough to get a lift to the ferry’s office from someone I asked about its location: I was exactly the last one to get a ticket for the 2 PM ferry. On the ferry I did some coding and walked around with a sign saying “Nelson”. Not very effective. Fortunately I started talking with some people on their way to Nelson. The car was pretty full already, but I got a ride. I was dropped in the
city center and asked around. Not too many people know where The Cliffs are. Basically you climb up to Washington Road,
and then there are a bunch of streets. Print out some Google Map stuff, or get a map at the Taxi shop.

A bit drenched I arrived at the location. Even at night in the rain it looks pretty. Hungry Steve was there to let me in.
Leo had just arrived that afternoon. I didn’t recognize him at first. Later we had great conversations about CouchSurfing
and Life. Today we went out to buy some essential stuff such as a water kettle, duct tape and a telephone, which unfortunately didn’t make any other sounds than “tuut tuut tuut” yet. Tomorrow we’ll try to get the phone line and internet to work. (Internet is still not working, but Glenn has broadband and doesn’t live too far away.)

 

There’s plenty of space in the house and in spite of the rain the view is definitely amazing. But it’s not clear how many people we can actually house here. If not, we also bought a tent for 10 NZD$ and in Summer sleeping on the beach seems an excellent alternative.

Kasper

CouchSurfing in Syria!

Right now I’m in LA, it’s 1:25 AM, and I decided to stay up later. My flight is only leaving at 6:20 PM tomorrow. 18 hours later I will be arriving in Auckland. I’m not too eager to leave the US. I had a great time here. My life has changed. Again. CouchSurfing is so much cooler than I had thought, and now I’m totally addicted to making it better.

When I went to the Collective in Montreal I didn’t really know what to expect. I just wanted to set up a CouchSurfing Wiki. Which I did! Do-ocracy is the rule. The Wiki is turning out to be a big success, with over 100 registered users and more edits than I can read. I didn’t have any clear goals. I just wanted a platform where people can cooperatively work on documents related to CS, and somehow related, a Guide for CS all over the world. No Tourist Guide, a CouchSurfing Guide. Where people who want more guests, but live outside the city, advertise themselves. Where you can write about good places to hold CS meetings. Where you can explain people coming to your country how to be a good guest. Today I was reading the article about Syria and it made me happy!

I only spent two weeks in Montreal, the final weeks of the Montreal Collective. But I met many amazing people, whom I will meet again and again for the rest of my life. And I started programming on the CS code, just a little bit. With amylin I hitchhiked down to NYC, drove to San Francisco with a CouchSurfer I met in Lima, hitchhiked to Quincy, and did some more programming. And more hitchhiking to Portland OR, more programming, more hitchhiking!

Last week http://bugs.couchsurfing.com was set up. More than 70 bugs have been reported. Which is great! The more bugs reported, the healthier the project! It makes it easy for developers to go and fix them.

There are so many people who want to help out with technical issues, programming, security, design. It’s just hard to get them started. There are still only 3 people who regularly submit patches (incremental improvements to the code), Casey, Anu and me. That needs to be improved. But, the current code base is not the most readable ever. So things need to be redesigned.

One good way to get new programmers started is putting out small (harmless) parts of the code out there, and ask for improvement. People who send in useful patches can be given access to the entire code.

Check the NZC Technical Goals on the Wiki for more information. And feel free to edit or to leave comments on the discussion page.

peace,

Kasper