[Zope-dev] My thoughts on the development process

[Martijn Faassen]

Chris McDonough wrote:
> There really is a lot more work that goes into the stuff in the
> fishbowl from the folks at ZC than just an announcement

Exactly. But in the end, if nobody responds except internally at ZC, 
and you implement it, the fishbowl stuff is kind of an announcement,
right? And others outside of ZC can't do that. I'm not saying that you
want this to be the case, but it's what happens in effect.

> That said, I
> agree that a ZC proposal driven by a consulting project will more
> likely end up in the core than anything else, so I think I understand
> what you're saying.  The problem really isn't that folks at ZC can get
> around the fishbowl process, it's just that consulting-driven ZC
> projects currently take priority over just about everything else, and
> they soak up all available ZC resources.

And *some* ZC resources, even though just an 'okay go ahead' on
a mailing list, are needed at least to get contributors going. I had
to ask about releasing ParsedXML several times until I got some kind of
'aye' out of anyone. And it still wasn't clear. I shouldn't have to
be that persistent.

Of course my ParsedXML contributions are in a large part due to it being
necessary for a consulting project -- one of my own. :)

> One of the remediations has been to extend CVS commit privileges to
> folks outside ZC, and we've done that.  It's clear we need to do more
> than that, but it's not clear exactly what needs to be done or how to
> do it.  We know it has something to do with changing the process and
> spreading responsibility out, but we're still taking baby steps.

Okay, I'm just playing devil's advocate here pushing the poor baby into the
direction I think it should be going. :) Perhaps the contributors should start
doing the +1 -1 thing over fishbowl projects, sort of like what Chris Withers
initiated over at the Zope3-dev list. Still needs someone at ZC to play
benevolent dictator though, though an Apache-style core group with veto style
might work as well eventually.

Anyway, I'm not really complaining about ZC; I have a lot of 
admiration for what you're doing and the steps you've already taken are
not mere baby steps at all from my perspective. Just offering a couple of
my eurocents.

Regards,

Martijn