About Project Diktuon
Pulling the Fish Together
Examples of Internet Communities

Here are some examples of Internet communities and how they work.

(Check the facts. Add links and stuff.)

Debian

Debian is a community project to develop one of the core distributions of GNU/Linux operating system. It derives its name from its founder and his girlfriend. It consists of more than 1000 people from around the world who share the same vision and values: commitment to Free software and developing a stable system. Some of the developers have characterized their group rather a social club than a group of coders. The community chooses itself a project leader every two years. Project is supported by technology companies.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu is at the moment the widest used GNU/Linux distribution. South-African Businessman Mark Shuttleworth started it as an effort to create a Linux for human beings. Ubuntu is based on Debian, but is more lenient in terms of software Freedom and stability. An important part of Ubuntu is its large and helpful user web-based community, where people guide each other with Ubuntu related (and unrelated) issues. Shuttleworth has declared himself a lifelong benevolent dictator of the project and it is commercially supported by his company Canonincal.

KDE

KDE is an effort to create a powerful graphical user interface for GNU/Linux operating systems. The system is highly integrated and requires deep co-operation from the developers. One of the most important channels for discussion is email. The developers came from a variety of backgrounds. Only some of them are coders. Many work on for example artwork, usability or simply communicating what’s going on in the community. It is formally backed up by a German non-profit company that allocated resources (such as server power) to the community.

DeviantArt

DeviantArt community grow in 2000 out of peoples urge to publish there art in the Internet to each other. Now there are over 11 million members and 80 million original pieces of art. DeviantArt is run by a commercial company with some paid employees, but the users of the site have a strong sense of community. Most of the community work – like managing different sub-communities – is done by volunteers.

Geocaching

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. First cache was placed in May 2000 and coordinated published in the Internet. One month later the game’s rules were established. 3 months later there was a commercial company to run a business. In less than a year there was the first gathering of geocachers. Today There are over 900 000 active geocaches and 3 million geocachers worldwide. It should be noted that the commercialization of geocaching raised lot of controversies in the community, and now there are several non-commercial sites to compete with the original.

Couchsurfing

Since 2004 CouchSurfing has been an international network that connects travellers with locals. Today, over a million people who might otherwise never meet are able to share hospitality and cultural understanding.

A remarkable trait of their organisation is that they ended up running their own servers. In 2006 their service provider’s system crashed and they couldn’t provide proper backups of their databases, while there were thousands of travellers on the road. Luckily they were just starting a meetup where they were to work on a system, so the members of the community literally redesigned and wrote the system, while tracking travellers on the road. They concluded that they could not outsource such a critical part of their activity, and as there were capable people, decided to run their own services.

Couchsurfing has some hired personnel and organises periodically larger meetings to develop the community. CouchSurfing is a non-profit organization, funded by the generous donations of their members and run according to their guiding principles. In 2008 their income was over $788,000 and Remaining operating funds at years end over $28,000.

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