Hello Gary, Just to add my little testimony to the discussion.
I'm a former XWiki SAS employee, and still an active committer and contributor - to the extend of the time I can allow myself doing that. That's one of the things that makes truly open projects great : leaving the company doesn't mean giving up on the community. And vice-versa : employees don't get automatic committership rights on the project. If you look at the the hall of fame http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/HallOfFame#HCoreCommitters, you'll see a fair share of core committers are XWiki SAS affiliated, but that there are "outsiders" as well. Hope you like it there :) Regards, Jerome On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 3:17 PM, Gary Kopp <[email protected]> wrote: > Vincent, > > I freely admit that I did indeed form conclusions prematurely, complicated > by the happenstance that I picked precisely the wrong point in time to > evaluate the community (during your seminar). Given the responses on this > thread and the resources you have referenced I now find the XWiki project > to > be extremely appealing from a developer's standpoint. I thank you, and the > others on this thread, for taking the time to straighten me out. > > My current plan is to "give back" in some significant fashion. I am an > exception to your typical contributor, and this will hopefully work to the > community's benefit (but only time will tell). I am a "retired" software > engineer, and I am still driven to architect (my true speciality) and code > simply to exercise my mind and create things of "beauty." This is how I > choose to spend my retirement, and I have no other time-consuming > activities. So, being by nature obsessive-compulsive, immersive, and highly > productive, whatever "hobby" I pick (XWiki) will receive my > more-than-full-time attention, on a long term basis. > > Of course, I have my own special areas of interest when it comes to XWiki, > even if they are not driven by currently recognized requirements. The one > that is foremost in my thinking at this time is semantic content. The good > news/bad news about this interest is that it will undoubtedly lead to > clashes with the current WikiModel. I see from your posts that you > personally see the model as the last (?) remaining core piece that needs > re-architecting. I will not presume to say that I can be of any help here, > but I will indeed be looking into it once I have completely absorbed the > existing architecture of the entire XWiki platform. But first I have to get > the darned system built :-) > > --Gary > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of > Vincent Massol > Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 12:31 AM > To: XWiki Developers > Subject: Re: [xwiki-devs] Are Outside Developers Really Welcome? > > Hi Gary, > > Since you're not the first one to ask I've created a FAQ entry about this: > > http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/FAQ/What+is+the+relationship+between+XWi > ki+SAS+and+the+XWiki+open+source+project > > Hope you'll find the information you were looking for inside and that > you'll > be reassured that we are completely the opposite of what you initially > thought (we strive very hard to NOT be a closed open source and make every > effort to be what I call a "real open source project", i.e. a > community-based open source project. > > If you see any deviation from this please point them out. It seems to me > that you confused the way we work with the fact that you didn't get any > fast > reply to your question and you jumped to a bit hasty conclusions ;) > > Generally speaking (excluding the Seminar thing), the reasons people answer > faster to some people than others: > * They know each other from their previous work in the community and thus > have built respect and the person getting replied to has **contributed** > back to the community thus establishing this level of intimacy/confidence > * They know the topic and can thus answer > * How the questions are phrased, how long the question is, and how easy > they > are to be answered > * ah yes. also. the phase of the moon. ;) > > Thanks > -Vincent > > On Jul 23, 2012, at 11:24 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 > _______________________________________________ > devs mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > > _______________________________________________ > devs mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
