Re: [phpGroupWare-developers] Sad thing

[Chris Weiss]

On 2/19/07, Klaus Lepschi wrote:
> First things first:
> I'm aware of phpgroupware for quite some time now, and I cannot emphasize 
> enough how much I appreciate and honor the hard work and the efforts of the 
> project crew that has gone into phpGroupWare so far.
>
> Still, what is going on with that project lately?

there is some effort to clean things up to prepare for the 0.9.18
release with full php5 support, including usability with E_ALL and reg
globals off.  This is a lot of work and there are very few willing
people with hours available to help.

> "You can grab the new version from our download section."
> Yet the "download section" (http://download.phpgroupware.org/) is down, and only yields a 
> "Server not found"-page.

hm, dns error of some sort, I'll check it out.  thanks for the report.


> Mirrors:
> Dead, apart from Japan and sourceforge.

sourceforge is our primary download site.  The bandwidth requirements
are too great for the donated hosting to have our site as the primary.

> Demos:
> In search for a suitable groupware-solution for a client of ours, I came across 
> the phpGroupWare-site again. As per today, there is effectively no demo site 
> online anymore.

appears some cleanup is in order.  this is biggest problem with free
hosted demos.

> Docs:
> When you try to browse the doc-section, there is nothing but void.

there used to be a lot, I don't think it is all lost, but the effort
to restore it is great since it is not in a clean backup format.
Again with free hosting and free time...


> I have done some 10 installs on the weekend, and as per usual this goes breezingly easy. But what comes then 
> is simply a shame. "Projects" cannot be created as there are no "activities", and when 
> you try to read up how you create "activities", guess what application comes without docs?

tried the doc folder in the projects installation?  projects is
actually one of the better documented ones.  Docs are not just online.

> I don't want to bash anybody, and once again, being a programmer for decades myself, I 
> truly honor all the work, but even if it's OpenSource, and "free to take", 
> shouldn't there be at least _some_ quality-criteria be met?

when there enough people to code and quality check, sure.  The ugly
side of OSS is that most people only wish to take and not provide
anything back.  This works fine when there is a corporate sponsor like
OOo and Eclipse, but phpGroupWare has no major backer.  There are
basically 3 guys that do most of the coding as free time and
sponsorships are available, with a few more submitting small features
and fixes as they require them.  There are many more that do quick
hacks that cannot be cleanly diffed back to the project with the
resources we have.


> 1: Archive content
> It's not really the sweetest thing to add some 850 CVS-folders to the 
> distributed version of your system.

our primary update/upgrade method is via CVS.  it does at a little
more to the initial install, but the bandwidth savings on updates is
tremendous.  there are a large number of people that prefer and even
require this.

> 2: Applications
> Why pack apps like "img" with the standard-version, and yet inform the user that these apps are 
> outdated (btw. the suggested "FUNKWERK" does maybe anything, but not install via the 
> "Setup"-module)

easy, popular request.  tts is another such app.  there are people
using them unsupported or not.  removing them from the tarball would
punish these existing users who want to do a clean install or don't
have CVS available.


> 3: quality of code
> What good is the respectable approach of templates when in key-apps like the calendar 
> functions like "css()" are being called to write style-information?

you are welcome to propose a better solution that allows the flexible
templating we have and also allow multiple apps to work together
without the risk of duplicate CSS definitions.  XSLT in .18 will
improve on this as well though.


> Anyway, I understand that in a large project like phpGroupWare things can get 
> hairy sometimes, but the current status of website , code and the system in 
> general indicates that something's beyond being hairy, and pretty much going 
> awry already.

yes, it has gone awry.  As I've said, there is a lot of work and no
one seems to want to do it, or sponsor it to be done.

> I really hope the project team can inject some stringent quality aspects again 
> before more ppl divert to e-groupware.

if you look closer, egw has the same problem we do, except they will
again have to port several of our design changes to move forward with
php5 and php6 when it is ready.  many of their "fixes" are ini changes
that will not be available for php6.  They focused on our 0.9.14
codebase and tried to make it stable, and initially, they did.  We
moved forward, with UTF8 support, a more powerful contacts system, and
took on the difficult and in depth challenge of properly fixing our
code for php5 support.  I think of egw as an improved version of our
.14 release.  Sort of where we would be if we though .14 was good
enough code to make a 1.0 out of.  We think it is not and so kept
improving designs just as we always have.


So what's the solution?  get involved. checkout a HEAD cvs copy and
see if you can fix some things so that it runs under E_ALL.  Submit
patches.  Make improvements.  there is room for more coders in this
project, no doubt about that.

you see, we get emails like yours on a regular basis.  You are in a
minority in that you actually took the time to construct a potentially
informative email, but the reality is that you have told us little
that we didn't already know (the DNS info was helpful).  Within this
minority, you have a choice now:  Be in the majority who never respond
again (in other words, be a "taker"), or find the good in phpGroupWare
codebase where it can help you and then join the project and help us
improve while also giving yourself a groupware suite and application
platform that does what YOU want.  Write docs, fix code or sponsor
fixes and features with the developer of your choosing, maintain a
demo mirror, however you can help will be welcomed and appreciated as
long the quality (which you already said is important) is there.

See, what's gone awry is that too many people will tell us what's
wrong, and not enough will help fix it.  So, if you choose not to
help, then you are part of the problem.  The "takers" will be the
death of the project, like so many other OSS projects before.

Ask not what phpGroupWare can do for you, but what you can do for
phpGroupWare! (with apologies to President Kennedy)