Quick mail: I've cleaned up GTG blueprint. I don't think that that is a good place for discussing (there is only a "whiteboard" were everybody writes in the same textbox, which will be really messy). It's a good place for specifications, though, with lots of possibility to link people, bugs, branches....
On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 12:28 AM, Bertrand Rousseau <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > Needless to say, GTG know quite a good growth in success. I don't have > actual numbers, but the numbers of bug reports, contributors, merge > requests shows... This is great, and it sure warms my heart, even more > when I know that one year ago we had just what looked like a prototype > application to share. But this is also a problem since all this > activity is quite overwhelming, and it's becoming hard to keep > everything in control. For Lionel and I, it means a lot of catch-up > and debate, and that very often lessen our possibility to directly > contribute to code, or to hack new things. > > In the past days, some of us had several discussions about the current > state of the GTG community, etc. We requested the advice of some other > developers, to get a feedback and some advices on how to handle that > issue. We had some pretty interesting feedback, and I'm writing this > mail today to start the discussion and hopefully to decide some new > way of working with our community. > > Those following suggestion keept my attention (feel free to add yours > in your response): > > - have a roadmap: we definitely have to agree on the several > development steps we want to reach. A roadmap is the perfect solution > for that: it allows to lay down our intention as developers, and it > allows to give priorities to them. That way, it keeps a group of > developers focused on the "next big thing" to do. This roadmap should > be public, so that everyone know our priorities, and motivated > contributors can start working on less prior tasks, that way, it keeps > the contributed work useful. I think having a "Roadmap" page on our > wiki is the way to go. > > - have some kind of guidelines/"manifesto": we should try to lay down > some core thoughts and perspective about the way we think GTG ought to > be developed. That way, that would help developers, triagers and > contributors to know that their contribution will likely be accepted. > Knowing beforehand that it goes against our views, having those > guidelines would avoid energy-sinks like endless debate on feature X > or Y if it's an inappropriate contribution. Once again, our wiki page > is perfect for that. > > - a place to discuss ideas and mid-term plans: we also need to debate > on some design *before* it reach actual code, or - at least - merge > request. It's important to have a tool that allows to test solutions, > without the burden and the pressure of integrating too quickly > experimental code. I guess we could try using launchpad blueprints for > that, since they should be a convenient way of discussing design issue > at a relatively higher level than bug reports. For instance, they > would be perfect for Lionel's backends proposal. > > - a place to integrate cutting edge/prototype code: Having some kind > of experimental branch could help too. Maybe we could move towards > this scheme: a "stable" branch (i.e.: 0.2 right now), with minor > revisions integrating critical bug patches, an "instable" branch > (i.e.: 0.3 right now) integrating more new features, but already > discussed ones, and an experimental branch (not present right now) > that would have a very low-filtering level, and allow for on-the-edge > testing. > > So these are my ideas so far, please don't hesitate to share your > point of view about it. So far, this would imply those decisions: > > - create and write a roadmap page on GNOME live GTG page > - create and write a guideline page on GNOME live GTG page > - start discussing some midterm work (from the roadmap) on launchpad > blueprints > - create an extra "experimental" branch on launchpad + create and > write a mail + a page on how development work in GTG > > Have a nice day! > > -- > Bertrand Rousseau > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~gtg > Post to : [email protected] > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~gtg > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp > _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~gtg-contributors Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~gtg-contributors More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
