On Mon, 2003-12-15 at 21:31, Stipe Tolj wrote: > Hi list, > > we expect that we have a huge ammount of people reading the list > because they use Kannel actively as SMS or/and WAP gateway for their > commercial purposes. > > Alexander and I had a couple of discussions today about how strong (or > consider the word weak better) the participation in the Kannel Group > is concerning bug fixing, feature enhancements and general development > activities. > > Unfortunatly we both came to the conclussion that it is *very poor*. >
As is the feedback for those, like me, who at least *try* to send enhancements and bugfixes to the core development team. I suspect the problem is a negative feedback loop. Knowledge of the "Kannel way" of implementing functionality is limited to a few core developers, who are then inclined to see quick-and-dirty bugfixes as an aesthetically unappealing kludge instead of an outsider's attempt at addressing operational issues with your software. Eventally, one or more of the core developers will realize the "why" behind the hack, and integrate it into the codebase; however, HOW the integration is done is never discussed. Is there TFM to R about gwlib? Is there any documentation describing smsc_conn or other common functions and interfaces used for SMS gateways? I am competent enough to see and fix problems in the small, but I will be the first to admit that I have neither the time or resources to try to completely understand the high-level design of Kannel. Your product is one of several different codebases we use to do our work, and we've got other work to do than deriving APIs from header files and comments; my expertise lies elsewhere, as does the expertise of my colleagues. Documentation about Kannel internals would be a *big* help. If you -- the core developers -- want people to contribute, you'll need to address these issues, and you'll need to be willing to explain what you are doing about the issues that come up, and why you choose to do things the way you do. This is, after all, a mailing list dedicated to *discussion* about the development of Kannel. Perhaps if there were more discussion and more sharing of knowledge, then you would find the community much more willing to enhance your product and fix its defects. David WHITE ONE GmbH
