Constraints are Liberating

So I made it to the Future of Web Apps Summit last week, and although my question for the panel wasn't asked (which isn't surprising given what turned out to be the focus of the conference — not "how Web 2.0 applications are changing the way people interact online," but rather, "how to build a business around the fact that they are"), I did get the chance to speak briefly with David Hansson of 37signals about project management software (and whether they plan to build scheduling functionality into Basecamp, which they don't). It's interesting — despite feeling excluded by his definition of the open source "community" (i.e. that it is only "solutions to problems of contributors"), and although some of the slides from his presentation reminded me of 1984, I agree with a lot of what he has to say (e.g. constraints are liberating — they allow us to focus on what is to/can be done), even if he doesn't believe project baselines are necessary :)

In terms of writing up notes from the conference, Simon Willison has done an amazing job here, and rumour has it podcasts of the presentations given will be made are available on the summit site in the near future.

P.S. 37signals has announced the launch of Campfire today, their "real-time web-based group chat tool for business." I participated in some load testing of the product last week, and it's pretty awesome.

furtureofwebapps, davidhansson, 37signals, schedulingfunctionality, basecamp, 1984, constraints, baselines, open source, community, campfire, importantprojects