Development

Posted by nyloth 14 Jul 2007 16:55 GMT-0000 posts: 5 ☆ ☆

> I suggest one of us can lead the creation of a Tiki developers network (TDN) with a website and identity separate from tw.o that can be linked to http://tikiwiki.org/tiki-index.php?page=TikiCommunity. The people will overlap across both groups, but the separation helps to address my concerns.

dev.tw.o may be a good place for this. And we already have the bugtracker there.
I'm not against this proposition, but this implies much more work comparing to what I was suggesting...

> > - Many developments are done in different companies or organizations but are
> > not send back to the community. This is not a problem, but It would be better
> > if we could convince more people that it is better for us and for them to
> > share new feature developments, since they will benefit from the existing
> > community (bug fixing, compatibility with code evolution, etc.)
>
> I do not think the bounty system directly addresses this, and may in fact confuse the issue. The way to tackle this problem is to have a separate section on a tw.o site for patches and users - the user community. This is more work, but I believe is worth the effort as a separate activity. No need to mix in the bounty system into this. Someone else could lead this, preferably a very advanced power user not necessarily a dev.

In fact I was not precise enough.
My idea was that the bounty system website could help to convince developpers to send back their tiki code to the community.

Or, maybe, as for Horde project's bounties, we may have to establish some rules implying that a developper has to commit his code in the CVS and his code has to be well accepted in the community, in order to claim the bounty...

Btw, the idea that you should already be tikiwiki developper (i.e. ou can commit on tikiwiki CVS) to make a bid for a bounty, seems me a good idea.

> This can be taken care of by the user community I mentioned above. We are not the "company-sponsored" type of open source project. We are more diverse - many smaller companies (like me) and self-employed joined together type. The information for who is involved as users should be available as part of the user community. As for bounties, that should exist on the TDN.

Ok with that.

> External TDN website may help in this, to avoid risk number 2. It will also help provide better mentoring of new devs. e.g. The devs who are also in core and in TDN can identify new devs who have potential to be more involved in core. Open source projects scale only with concentric circles - we need more of these circles.

Well... I personnaly have, as you, a huge preference to avoid impersonal bounties. This is why, as mentionned above, we may have to reduce the list of users that can make a bid to tikiwiki developpers. And this may be done for existing dev.tw.o trackers.

But what you are suggesting is not only a bounty question. Your risk number 2 already exists without bounties. I think this is another topic to open if you want.

> > - more quickly reduce our bug and wish list
>
> We don't want to "bountify" bugs. Ironically, this might actually discourage bug fixing overall if people only fix bugs that are bountied.

You're completely right. In fact I should have written: "- more quickly reduce our wish list" ;)

> do a tracker on the TDN site (which I assume will run Tiki )

Ok for trackers. Not completely against TDN-specific website, but not convinced that dev.tw.o is not enough.
My four main questions with a TDN-specific website are :
- Why not benefiting from dev.tw.o trackers ?
- Who will host it and pay for it ?
- Who will adminitrate it ?
- Won't people be loosed with all our *.tw.o websites ?

For the first question, I can precise that people may want to sponsor an existing wishlist item send by someone who didn't want to pay for... With a new website, this sponsor may send a new tracker item on the TDN website. This may produce duplicated wishlist items (one on TDN, the other on dev.tw.o) or, worse (e.g. a developper that doesn't matter to be paid could not check TDN bounties and develop the wished item while another developper was trying to finish it to claim a bounty...)

This is why I prefer to use only dev.tw.o (but I'm open ;))

> Once it goes beyond a wiki page, it will start to look institutionalized and slippery slope may happen. I strongly suggest TDN site be not on tw.o domain. Linking is less of an issue then.

I don't that think slippery slope may happen with a simple link on tw.o portal ...

> Finally, I am willing to help in this Tiki Developers Network site.

Great