Ooo, huge +1 to both points (contrib free-for-all, and moving to something that's not CVS or Subversion). It would be a lot of work to get to that point, and would likely not be something that could happen for the Drupal 7 release, but it sounds like a fair goal for Drupal 8! ----- Cameron Eagans Owner, Black Storms Studios, LLC http://www.blackstormsstudios.com
On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 8:12 PM, Marcel Partap <[email protected]> wrote: > [...] > Totally agree with your analysis but not with the conclusion that creating > documentation of duplicate module's differences is a feasible way out. > Especially, all problems tied to the fact that there's an individual person > who has sole sovereignty over a certain part of the code - ain't tackled a > bit. If the maintainer is 'malfunct' (in some way or the other), 'his' > module is doomed, even though it's licensed as FOSS. Only way of > circumventing the problem is forking - something the Drupal project really, > really does not need more of (quite the contrary!). > > Instead, IMHO, the responsibility for contrib code development should move > from indiviual people to the collective, i.e. every svn ... uuhm cvs account > holder should have commit access to all code. Sounds unmanageable at first > but seems to work out very well, f.e. with the KDE project. It's kind of > like the shared space 'urban design concept' ( > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space) - a lack of strict regulation > means individuals have to care a lot more about their interaction with other > participants. This way communication _and cooperation_ actually become > obligatory to making decisions - consequently a more swarmwork-oriented > style of interaction evolves. (..and in contrast to real world shared space > traffic, in the rare cases where this process fails and b$ code changes > indeed are committed, it's very easy to roll back and rework.) > > So imho Drupal contrib repository should be freed from > only-maintainer-writable-restriction to accessible-for-all-devs. The new way > of avoiding bogus code commits is not to prohibit developers (who might be > perfectly qualified for the task at hand) from changing certain code, but by > giving more clearance to everybody. With more power comes more > responsibility of course: covert, disagreed code changes are only prevented > by social mechanisms, not repository access rights. > To reiterate: this process works perfectly well for KDE: although i have > only done some tiny commits here and there, my SVN account is not limited! > Nothing there to prevent me from committing havoc to core kdelibs code > straight away, right now... Still - it never happens! > > Proceeding from there, the pitiful situation of duplicate modules with > overlapping functionality could be entirely prevented for D7 by > - identifying with which functionality this has happened in the past > - collecting ideas for frameworks (such as messaging, search functionality, > shopping cart, payment, web questionaires, workflows, file handling - oh > wait that one's cared for already) or spotting existing ones most fit to do > the job in D7 > - implement frameworks with focus on modularity, customizability > - port functionality from existing modules to these new interfaces > - raise the bar on adding new 'isolated' modules > > The switch to D7 is also a good time to introduce these workflow changes, > because with the major API restructuring it has seen, most modules will have > to change substantially anyways (and be it just to comply with new coding > standards) to be in line with HEAD - a good time for converging, tidying up > and trashing cruft code constructs from contrib. > > Earlier this year i already tried to win some support for this idea > (admittedly a bit differently in form) but for all reasons, failed > miserably. Bytes are cheap though so SCNR to bring it up again. > > BTW, using the drupalfr.org GIT mirror for D7 and the infamious tig CLI > interface makes the repo really much more friendly to manage - is D7 still > not the time to move to a 21st century source control system? > > regards, > marcel. > > -- > GRATIS für alle GMX-Mitglieder: Die maxdome Movie-FLAT! > Jetzt freischalten unter http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/maxdome01 >
