On Jul 24, 2012, at 4:59 PM, Gary Kopp wrote: > Thanks for the additional testimony, Jerome. > > This might be a bit off-topic or even inappropriate, but I can't control my > curiosity :-) XWiki SAS is headquartered in Paris. But there's a satellite > in Romania. How did the Romanian connection come about?
There were 2 GSOC students that contributed to the XWiki open source project and they continued to be active (Sergiu and Marta - Sergiu is still very active in the project and Marta from time to time) even after the GSOC. At some point XWiki SAS asked them if they wanted to join the company and they agreed. It just happened that 1) they were living in Romania (could have been any other part of the world!) and 2) they were teachers at the University and knew a lot of good computer science students and XWiki SAS also hired a few of them who themselves had friends… ;) And in no time there was a Romanian subsidiary ;) Thanks -Vincent > --Gary > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of > Jerome Velociter > Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 8:45 AM > To: XWiki Developers > Subject: Re: [xwiki-devs] Are Outside Developers Really Welcome? > > 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+betwe >> en+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
