Overheard On Roselearn:
Sep 23rd, 2009 by admin
Open-Source Leaderless Teams?
By Bob Jacobs
Dear Friends,
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, once told an interviewer that at the beginning of his career with the original MS-DOS operating system, his father asked him why anyone would be willing to pay for software. With the globally widespread development and acceptance of open-source alternatives to Microsoft proprietary software products, Mr. Gates may be currently revisiting his father’s question.
The most widely used free-of-charge open-source operating system is “Ubuntu,” and is used throughout the world by both individual users and governments. This writer has been using it for about three years, and is looking forward to the release of version 9.10, dubbed “Karmic Koala” in October.
The word “Ubuntu” is African for “humanity to others.” The following web address provides more information about Ubuntu, and includes a wonderful explanation from Nelson Mandela via a short video:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_ (philosophy)
For information regarding how the spirit of Ubuntu has been implemented in the arena of computer operating systems, please visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_ (operating_system)
The reason this information is being shared with you is because, the relationship between the Windows and Ubuntu operating systems seems to me to be somewhat analogous to the relationship between the 20th century and 21st century Rosicrucian Fellowship. The new RF, in order to be successful, should reflect a decentralized, open-source spirit, with no centralized leadership, and a desire to freely share the WWT’s to all via modern communications technology. The 21st century version of the Cosmo-Conception available for free viewing on handheld internet devices throughout the world, in multiple languages, is an example.
Reply:………I disagree with the idea of no leadership. The policies will not be implemented then also there will be chaos. We have a movie that came out in the late 1960s ………..etc……………….Eileen
Thanks for your thoughts on this matter. The movie to which you refer is “Lord of the Flies,” based upon the novel of the same name by William Golding. I remember reading the book as a high school freshman at Brooklyn Tech in New York City, and seeing the movie with my parents.
The “Lord of the Flies” story is applicable to our discussion only if we were to agree that the membership of the RF is at the maturity level of adolescents. As Max Heindel has pointed out, birth is a “fourfold” event, and it is not until the mind is born at 21 years of age that a human has recapitulated previous stages of development and is truly an “adult.”
An example of the nature of leadership that, I believe, would provide a useful analog to the 21st century RF is the international work currently underway for the next version of the Ubuntu operating system. If you were to google “Ubuntu 9.10” or “Canonical,” a bit of exploration would provide the details of the many small teams, scattered throughout the world, working on the complex project of producing an increasingly popular, freeware version of an operating system that is providing Bill Gates with sleepless nights.
Another example of a relatively “leaderless” team is a neonatal, pediatric, or adult resuscitation team in an acute care hospital setting. Although one individual, usually a physician, takes responsibility for the overall effort, the team members are highly trained and everyone knows what to do, without submitting to anyone else’s authority. No politics, no personality clashes, no hidden agendas; simply a shared desire to save a human life.
As a preparatory school to the Rosicrucian Order, should not the operating principles of the Rosicrucian Fellowship manifest, at least in some small measure, the concept of the synthesis of religion, art and science? Fellowship, as a principle of religion, manifests as a devout church congregation, enraptured by the harmony of a well-rehearsed choir. Fellowship, as a principle of art, manifests as the second movement of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, an incomparable distillation of the sorrow of overwhelming, solitary, responsibility.
Click on image to hear 2nd Movement of Beethoven's Symphony
Fellowship, as a principle of science, manifests as teams of computer programmers, scattered throughout the world, enraptured by the complexity of a fully-functional, free-of-charge, operating system capable of successfully competing with the products of centralized for-profit corporations. In the spirit of “Ubuntu” i.e. “humanity to others” we see examples all around us, of our brothers and sisters successfully collaborating, often separated by great distances, on exceedingly difficult, complex projects, putting aside differences of personality, ethnic origin, politics, etc. Can we not do the same?
The first decade of the 21st century is nearly completed, and we still have not seen a new “external” spiritual leader arising, either among us, or from without. Perhaps, this is not meant to be. Perhaps this new century portends a new operational model for the Fellowship. Perhaps, as a successful team, we can function together as a collective, virtual “initiate.” We have been given as a gift a treasure that Max Heindel procured for us with his own spirit of self-sacrifice. After 100 years, isn’t it time for us to say “thank you?”
Best Regards.
Bob Jacobs
Mesa, Arizona, USA
Bob,
I like the way you are approaching things here. The speed of knowledge and creativity in other fields can show us how to attack issues in seemingly unrelated fields like spirituality. I have a great deal of experience with group dynamics and facilitiation and team based groups and it can work but the people have be to educated before hand on how this model will function and resolve interpersonal issues before and during the process. No matter what the situation, egos and control and power issues always come up. The key, I believe, is acknowledging the task or mission at hand and everyone and everything is done in service to that principle . When personality issues arise, it is dealt with in reference to the task or mission at hand- is that person’s contributions best serving or supporting the goal or on a personal tangent.
The examples you use are great and becoming the norm as no one person can do all or even close today. As for applying this the Fellowship work, that needs further comittment and exploration.
I would ask, are those involved ready for this model given the strong leadership position of Heindel and the Order behind the scenes. I think freedom is the keynote of the Order but as long as reverential submission to “authority” and “leaders” remain in the minds and souls of the community, this model will not work. it takes a certain personality type to enact this model as you know.
I think its worth a try. Are you developing a working model to present to the other groups scattered across the states and other countries??
Jeff A
Hello , I found interesting the analogy of ubuntu and its meaning Humanity towards others. Exactly what the Cosmo says in the last verse of Creed or Christ,…
There’s but one thing the world has need to know.
There’s but one balm for all our human woe:
There’s but one way that leads to heaven above–
That way is human sympathy and love.
How we practice this in our lives depends on our energy and skills, perhaps fort that reason there are variants of the original ubuntu, like Kubuntu and Edubuntu…
This “people’s allegiances and relations with each other” embedded in the ubuntu philosophy is , imho, what the RF promoting since the begining, that “…Loving, self-forgetting service to others is the shortest, the safest, and the most joyful road to God…”.
Our beloved Mount Ecclesia and HQ are like the ubuntu server edition , and as the core switch of a computer network, the place where it is facilitated the networking between different nets , and assuring the “standards”…
Founders of pioneer RF_BBS like you, dear Bob, could be important contributing with the new social networking and web 2.0 tools so that we could spread the teachings in an intelligent way… I hope to see very soon podcasts from all over the world, youtube clips and more, as it is being done in the recent facebook initiative of Roger.