I think this has been a very interesting conversation. I would like to simply stress that no matter what technology we use, it does not inherently solve any of the problem. So, Sourceforge or Trac itself does not solve the problem. If we manage to identify the problem, then we can find the technological means to solve the problem.
I think it's common in open source projects of the lack of anyone doing anything. In some cases, I think documentation is a huge hurdle, especially on getting new folks to help out. I'm in the process of tracking down crashing bugs on old aolserver versions and after weeks of compiling and code-testing, I still find the code pretty daunting as it is. I also think, and I could be dreadfully wrong here, that outside of OpenACS and a few other cases, I don't think there's a huge number of sites using AOLserver. Maybe it's a chicken and egg problem with support vs userbase. Again, this is just my opinion and hope this isn't taken the wrong way. I guess also what would help is if interested developers understand how the development cycle and process of contribution works, they can understand better how they can help contribute back to aolserver. Just my two cents. On May 30, 7:20 am, Dossy Shiobara <do...@panoptic.com> wrote: > To quickly summarize: > > 1) Dave Bauer identifies the "lack of anyone doing anything about [open] > bugs" and the lack of "process or resources to deal with the bugs" as a > problem. > > 2) Tom Jackson identifies that there's little in-community support for > would-be contributors to get their changes merged into the codebase. > > 3) Tom Jackson identifies that there is "a lack of documentation of all > kinds". > > Lets do a little wishful dreaming for a moment and brainstorm actionable > ways to try and address these deficiencies. Let me try to seed this > with a few questions: > > How can we find resources to deal with bugs, support contributors and > write documentation? What would it take to get existing contributors to > contribute more? How can we recruit new contributors? > > Would adequate funding aid in adressing these issues? In best-effort > accuracy round number estimates, what kind of funding levels would we > need to reach to achieve what kind of results? > > If training were provided, could we transform more passive community > members into more active contributors and supporters? What kind of > training would be necessary? What subjects would need to be covered in > order to enable what kind of contributions? > > ... > > Feel free to add more questions as appropriate, but especially answers > that have clear actions associated with them. I'll try to do my best to > collate the various actions and present them in a concise list. Then, > maybe we can try to find ways to make those things happen. > > -- > Dossy Shiobara | do...@panoptic.com |http://dossy.org/ > Panoptic Computer Network |http://panoptic.com/ > "He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own > folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70) > > -- > AOLserver -http://www.aolserver.com/ > > To Remove yourself from this list, simply send an email to > <lists...@listserv.aol.com> with the > body of "SIGNOFF AOLSERVER" in the email message. You can leave the Subject: > field of your email blank. -- AOLserver - http://www.aolserver.com/ To Remove yourself from this list, simply send an email to <lists...@listserv.aol.com> with the body of "SIGNOFF AOLSERVER" in the email message. You can leave the Subject: field of your email blank.
