Hi James, On Sat, 2007-07-07 at 02:32 -0700, James Mohr wrote: > > Quote: > > find a flaw, someone will probably fix it. want better docs, write > them. > > > As I said in the first line of my original post "I working on an > article which will be a review of various web-based groupware tools." > While I would hate to see a project of this scope disappear from the > opensource map, I don't have a strong motivation to code or write > documentation for a product I do not use.
Currently phpGW is a large project in terms of lines of code, but we have very few active developers. I understand where Chris is coming from, there is so much to be done but very few people to do the work. I too get frustrated (and at times annoyed) with people who say "hey its all busted - fix it for me!". I also wish I had more time to contribute to the project than I do at the moment. > People tend to migrate towards useful and successful projects. If > there is essentially no documentation for a project, the ROI is very > low, so companies are not going to implement it, so you are not going > to get any "corporate backing". I tend to agree here, except for the corporate backing. Corporate backing can be a double edged sword. > The first GW tool I used was PHPGW. It was and is too frustrating to > use. On the other hand, I have donated real money to open source > projects. Why? Because they are useful, which also means I can figure > out out how to use them. Ask yourself why people are not donating real > money to PHPGW. I have given money to FLOSS projects too. I have also given 1000s of hours to FLOSS projects - not just phpgw. Currently phpgw doesn't need money, we need people who will put some work in - hence Chris' (poorly phrased) point. > > Have you approached any company for support? I trade advertisement on > my site for a number of things. HP and Brother (to name two) have > donated hardware to my project. One company donated a server which I > gave to one of the project admins. Needless to say he works a lot on > the project. Don't whine because you are not getting the help. Go look > for it! Sun gave me a 20kAUD+ server last week, I plan to sell it and use the cash towards a deposit for a house. Yes I could use it for testing phpGW on, but I have a laptop and 2 others servers that I can use for that. When we ran our conference in Paris last year, I spent a lot of time asking companies for donations and got a total of about 700USD. I think all up people were out of pocket to the tune of about 5kUSD. These days I will be spending my (limited) available coding and organising the project, not begging for donations. > > As a journalist, I have an obligation to tell my readers the truth > about the product. I dropped one product already from this article > because it was trash. PHPGW has some major issues, but is worth > mentioning. However, I would not recommend to a company looking for an > opensource groupware product. I am happy to admit that we have a long way to go. I am also a big supporter of honest independent journalism. I have no interest in telling you what to write. > > My two cents: Stop managing 3986 different modules. If the user wants > to read comics at work, let them download the module from somewhere. > Fix the bugs and usability problems and only afterwards work on adding > any "cool" features. Make PHPGW stand out from the others. Write > decent documentation so that everyone and anyone can use. Stop giving > RTFM answers when the FM is non-existant. Don't piss off journalists. Sounds similar to what I have been advocating http://davehall.com.au/blog/dave/2007/04/20/phpgroupware-release > You said "The manual is done in a odd way that makes it difficult for > developers to update and so they don't update it." FIX IT! I am sure other people think other bugs are more important. At the end of the day phpGW is a volunteer effort. People work on what they have an interest in when they have time. James, I don't really care if you are a journo, a user, a developer or a millionaire, I have little time for phpGW, these days, between paying work and family commitments, but being told "FIX IT!" hardly encourages me (or other developers) to invest time. Cheers Dave _______________________________________________ phpGroupWare-users mailing list phpGroupWare-users@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/phpgroupware-users
