--- Martijn Faassen <faassen@vet.uu.nl> wrote:
Hi there,
I've read parts of the open letter threads just now. There's a lot of talk about how if only we have better tools the whole process will go better and Zope will get more contributors.
That's a typical hacker response, and I do this myself as well. Throwing more technology at a problem doesn't always make a problem go away. And though technological solutions to social problems are nice if you can have them, and we should look for them, they don't always work.
I agree, the problem is more social than technological. However, cool technology that saves time rather than wastes it, makes contributing a pleasure rather than a pain, would be a great benefit IMHO. I was actually really down on Zope on Wed and Thurs. I was about ready to go and do something myself. Mostly writing and theorizing at first and then developing. However, Friday turned me around. I don't want to start from scratch, it's too hard. I don't want to "build" a community from scratch, it's damn near impossible. We've already got a tremendous community here, and it hasn't realized its potential even. So, I decided to stay here and do my theorizing and tinkering with Zope stuff, even if I'm not in 100% agreement with the way everything is done. And if nobody likes what I do, then I'll have my own Zope the way I want it thank you. If people like it then fine, they can have it. Nothing technological changed my mind, it was purely social.
I'm not convinced more technology will make the dead fish problem go away. I think the contributing process is in fact too heavyweight. It should be easier for people to get in drastic changes to Zope. The only way for people to take more responsibility if they can actually have it. Only a few people will take it, but that's more than what is possible now, with possibly the single exception of my taking responsibility for ParsedXML. And until recently I was still in the position of doubting whether I really had it formally, not just de-facto. I kept asking for approval and guidelines from the official maintainers, but they were too busy (no blame to them), so I went
It will be a slow and deliberate process to allow "outsiders" the ability to make big waves. It has to be in many respects. But I think each contributor will slowly make part of the core their own and take the initiative with it.
I dread having to go through the fishbowl to add in my 'node path' implementation to ParsedXML. I've done the design work, I've implemented most of it, and I feel I'd have mostly wasted time writing a fishbowl proposal. I hadn't even explored the problem enough to be able to do that. I needed to prototype it to understand it. I've discussed some issues with people locally and and on the Zope-XML mailing list. And I'll probably release a version in a few days.
Yes, prototypes are extremely valuable, more-so than fishbowl proposals to us hackers. But not everyone can appreciate a prototype, because the audience for feedback is not always hackers. Making a prototype work for non-techies is a lot of work too...
Perhaps adding Formulator to the Zope core would be nice eventually. But going through the fishbowl bureaucracy would take forever. I only have so much time to spend on it, and I'd rather spend time improving the product itself.
Yup, there needs to be people charged with analysing and taking outside products and integrating them with the core platform. A process to do this should be put in place.
And now look at how the Zope core is actually being developed. Sure, there's lots of stuff in the fishbowl about what the Zope future should be like. Plenty of stuff, though some stuff is rather hard to find. But I have a lot of praise for what the Zope Corp people have accomplished it it; it's a lot better than having no such thing at all, even if it's only used as a notification service in part.
I agree. It's better than nothing.
The main thinking about the directions of Zope is not done in the fishbowl or on the lists, it's in the minds of the talented people at Zope Corp and in the brainstorm sessions they hold together. That's the natural way people work. I work that way too. Such a process can occur on mailing lists as well, but it's very hard to break into it. I've tried several times. I'll keep trying as I'm convinced it's possible, but it takes a lot of persistence. Time will tell. On the Zope-XML list I just post regular updates about my thinking to encourage discussion, and sometimes that works.
There needs to be some way to elicit discussion. Again, I think this is a social issue. We need to "market" the idea that the community voice matters, and that feedback is a valuable contribution, no matter at what level it comes from or how it is made. I intend to try to do this in whatever ways I can think of.
So what am I trying to get at with this mail? One thing is that the process is too heavy-weight right now. The other thing is that the core coders at Zope Corp are in a position nobody else is in, and that should change. They are the only ones that can get around the fishbowl if they so desire. They can use the fishbowl in effect as a notification service. Not that they want to; I don't doubt their good intentions for one minute.
That probably won't happen until a significant core module is in the hands of an outside community member. Then I think it can happen readily.
But I want to be able to use it like that too when I need to. Others should be able to as well. I think I and a few other contributors are slowly getting to that position, but it happens too slowly and takes way too much persistence now. So let's trade in some risks to the Zope core development (rash action and messed up stuff happening once every while), in exchange for a lot more active contributors.
Once the testing framework is totally nailed down so that all the requirements can be accounted for, then I think this might be possible. I don't know how close we are to that tho...
Regards,
Martijn
I think these discussions are incredibly healthy. Lets keep up the dialog. -Casey __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Buy the perfect holiday gifts at Yahoo! Shopping. http://shopping.yahoo.com