Hi Gary, I would like to confirm Sergiu's message. Like him, I strongly believe that the XWiki community is one the best open source communities, and that participating to this project is really a pleasure for any serious java developer. I have joined the small circle of committers a few years ago after having used XWiki as a simple user for several years. The circle of commiters is not small because we are not open, but it is small because the requirements are high for truly participating to this project, and therefore need a lot of personal involvement. I should even admit that I am currently unable to participate as much as I would like, simply because I am lacking time.
I really hope you will change your mind on this project, and maybe we will have the occasion to work in an not too distant future to further improve XWiki together... -- Denis Gervalle SOFTEC sa - CEO eGuilde sarl - CTO On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 12:27 AM, Sergiu Dumitriu <[email protected]> wrote: > On 07/23/2012 05:24 PM, Gary Kopp wrote: > >> To XWiki SAS, and non-affiliated XWiki developers: >> >> While XWiki meets the technical requirements of being "open source," so >> far >> I have found it to be a bit "closed" in its pragmatic aspects. The >> developers actually interacting in public on this list all seem to be >> employees of the sponsors, and the communications seem to restrict >> themselves to development going on internally. Over the last week or so, >> questions coming in from "outsiders" (like myself) go unanswered. It's not >> necessarily atypical for open source sponsors to be unresponsive to >> outsiders, but the better open source projects still encourage the active >> committers to provide some level of support for potential contributors. >> Beyond that, when outside "hackers" (meant in a positive sense) are >> tinkering with an open source project they typically do offer their own >> contributions to questions raised on development mailing lists, in those >> open source projects where such activity is possible and/or encouraged. I >> see no evidence of outsider developers/hackers in the XWiki project. >> >> What finally led me to write this e-mail is my inability to build XWiki >> from >> source. I was initially encouraged by the presence of quite a bit of >> information about building in the wiki documents. But when I actually >> tried >> to put the instructions into practice I found them to be less than >> complete, >> and unable to be followed to a successful conclusion (while the purpose of >> this e-mail is not to get help with these problems, I will note that most >> of >> my problems revolve around Maven). I have reached the conclusion that the >> only people really able to build XWiki are its sponsors, using their own >> procedures, and these procedures are _not_ those currently found on the >> wiki. I hope I am wrong about this. >> >> So, are outside developers encouraged to participate? Is any XWiki >> development going on outside of the sponsoring organizations? If so, do >> those developers find the current building documentation to be adequate, >> and >> I'm simply not up to the task? >> >> --Gary >> > > Hi Gary, > > I'm going to start my answer with an excuse that covers most of the points > raised in your mail: for the past week and this one as well, the XWiki SAS > company is organizing an annual seminar for all its employees, and > everybody is rather busy with all the activities going on here, including a > hackaton that changes our priorities into getting a small project done > before the end of the week. So this period is not a very good one to judge > the interactions in the community. > > Not all the committers are employees of XWiki SAS. It is true that the > largest share of contributions come from XWiki SAS personnel, but not > because we're doing closed source development out in the open just to > appear open source. The main reason is that whenever we find a talented > person sticking around, we usually try to keep that person's interest in > the project by employing him (I am such an example). > > Another reason is that enterprise software communities have different > mechanics than user software like browsers or desktop applications. Most of > the users are employees of companies using XWiki internally, and they're > just trying to get some problems fixed. After their problems are fixed, > they go on with their main job. It is hard to get outside users to stick > around long enough to get really motivated into staying for the long term. > It happens in just two cases: When their company is using XWiki not just as > an internal wiki for their company, but as a platform on which they build > solutions for their own clients. And we have four such committers. The > second case is when they're true hackers that just happened to get in touch > with XWiki, and fell in love with it. I am such a person, and Caleb is > another. > > If you check the mailing list activity on the long term, excluding the > past week, you will see that we try to answer as many questions as we can, > and that the non-committers also respond to questions that they can answer. > > As for "better open source projects", I for one strongly believe that the > XWiki community is one of the best open source communities in the world, > although rather on the small to medium size. But since I am an XWiki SAS > employee, feel free to doubt my opinion. > > > Now, about the build problem, most of the time it works, but we see from > time to time problems raised on the mailing list. Maven is supposed to > simplify things and to "just work", but a complex build configuration is > more likely to fail than a simple java library. Someone will come in and > help you, but don't count on too much interaction from the XWiki SAS > employees until the end of the week. > > I hope that you'll give us a second chance. > -- > Sergiu Dumitriu > http://purl.org/net/sergiu/ > > > > ______________________________**_________________ > devs mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xwiki.org/**mailman/listinfo/devs<http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs> > _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
