Re: [phpGroupWare-developers] New developers (Was: Nested db-objects)

[Alan Langford]

On 2008-05-26 07:13, Dave Hall wrote:
> A release always bring in new developers, but few stick around.  Over
> the years I have witnessed the people coming to the project, checking it
> out, then realising the state of the code base and justifiably running a
> mile.  We need to take the issue of code quality and standards seriously
> if we are to build a sustainable project.
>
> Cheers
>
> Dave
>   
As someone who has been lurking here for just over three years, I have 
to say that this is the case for me. I first installed eGW. When I asked 
about making a contribution, I discovered that most of the development I 
was interested in was "sponsored" work being done on a different 
repository, and that the work would be "donated" when it was completed.

A clash of attitudes ensued. Then I installed pGW and left their list...

I had hopes of using pGW for a small client as the base for a CRM 
requirement they had. In the end the project didn't go ahead -- for 
reasons unrelated to the code. Meanwhile I had installed it and still 
use it for my very limited contact management needs. I was hoping to 
have some spare time to make a contribution, but as Dave said, the state 
of the code is of no help. Neither are the ongoing clashes between 
members of the team.

phpGroupWare is still an interesting, even "cool" project, but over the 
years I have completely lost interest in making a contribution to it. It 
used to be that I was waiting for you guys to a new edition of the core 
(I can't even remember the name... newapp or something?) up to the point 
where I could learn about it and start making a contribution, but 
progress was too slow because the project is below a critical mass of 
contributors (I even wrote a blog post on the topic last year, in an 
attempt to draw developers with available time to this project).

I have since become deeply involved in content management systems and 
joined the "Joomla!" project. The kind of sniping that happens here 
would not be tolerated in J!, but that's a direct result of having many 
voices to keep things calm and to work out issues based on commonly 
agreed upon design principles. Sadly, at this point if I needed 
groupware functionality I would be far more inclined to implement it in 
Joomla than to deal with pGW... the framework is defined, stable, well 
coded, and increasingly tested and robust. Joomla needs some major 
things before it could serve as a groupware platform, but they're coming 
fast.

All I can suggest is that everyone take a step back and create a 
vision/philosophy for the project that includes and agreed-upon set of 
design principles that covers issues like separation of logic and 
storage. Perhaps then these sorts of differences can be resolved by 
referring to the project philosophy instead of by a running battle on 
the list. These open conflicts do little more than discourage potential 
contributors, which perpetuates the problem. There's a lot of good stuff 
in pGW; it's very sad to see it become a candidate for life support.

Regards,

Alan