Douglas Hurbon wrote:
Here's an outside perspective on the 1.2/1.3/1.4 discussion, for
whatever its worth:
Perhaps I'm a typical user: Came to Lenya because it seemed like what
I wanted. Would have liked to have started using 1.4 in production
and contribute what I could, but was advised against it on the user
list, so used and went live with 1.2, expecting 1.4 to come relatively
soon.
All of my development has been with 1.2 (yes I'm in a world with
deadlines) -- I've even redone a number of 1.4 improvements: custom
meta data, tree publishing, etc. And since 1.2 was pretty much
described as a dead end (by definition, it should be),
I don't think it's dead and I don't think it should be. Yes, it's
backwards compatible, but that doesn't mean it's dead.
I never even considered contributing anything I did to 1.2 or thought
it necessary to stay in synch with some ongoing 1.2 development.
would you if you wouldn't have considered it dead?
I wonder how many people are in the same situation and how many are
still coming to Lenya and putting all their efforts into private
versions of 1.2, since there's still a big red DO NOT USE sticker on 1.4?
I think there are quite some :-(
I know I did, and still am, and since 1.2 is not the focus of
development, I pretty much developed my own 1.2.6 and feel like I'll
have little to contribute till 1.4 is released, and I make the
migration to it, and get onto the same page as everyone else.
It would have probably been more useful to the community (and to our
project) if my development efforts had been focused on a released
1.4. I think that's pretty obvious. (I'm sure all the devs wish 1.4
were finished months ago.) Even more scary is the idea that given our
current and ongoing customization of 1.2, I've started thinking I'll
just never migrate to 1.4 and keep developing my own 1.2. Now that's
a way to inhibit contributions to a development project, isn't it?
very much agreed
I wonder how much the long term 1.2/1.4 split has drained possible
contributions away from developing 1.4 and poured them into private
1.2 versions?
I bet a lot, if I'm a typical user (I may be just a wacko, one never
knows, in which case everything I'm saying is wrong.) Speaking from a
purely outside perspective, it seems like you need a big red arrow
pointing to a single version of lenya that says "USE AND DEVELOP THIS"
if you want to grow a community of users and developers who can make
meaningful contributions. When I first came (around October 2005),
the message was "Use 1.2, develop 1.4." Like most humans, all of my
energy was spent using and improving 1.2. If I'm a good test case,
you'll be encouraging divergent efforts until the community can
refocus around a single new version.
Of course, I could be completely wrong, and I make no claim to any
knowledge about the development realities of 1.2, 1.3 or 1.4. Just
thought it might be helpful for you to see what it looks like to
someone coming to the project recently.
thanks very much for sharing your view. I think you are pointing out a
huge problem(not just of Lenya) very nicely from a outside perspective,
but this outside perspective is exactly which counts, because Lenya is
intended for using.
The short term strategy is to release Lenya 1.4 as quickly as possible,
but saying so it's very important that we don't fall
into the same trap again with 1.6 or whatever future version.
The keyword here is "backwards and forwards compatibility" and that we
get this right for Lenya 1.4 (as good as we can).
Michi
-doug
_____________________________________
Douglas Hurbon
Office of University Relations
The City University of New York
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
_____________________________________
--
Michael Wechner
Wyona - Open Source Content Management - Apache Lenya
http://www.wyona.com http://lenya.apache.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
+41 44 272 91 61
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