Hi all, For the last couple of years I have been maintaining Tracks. This has been a lot of fun. I am using Tracks daily, so I have a personal stake in this. Unfortunately my family and a full time day job takes priority over Tracks. Sometimes it makes you feel guilty not investing as much time in Tracks that I like. Since there are not a lot of developers working on Tracks, I think this is the biggest reason Tracks is behind feature-wise and technology-wise as it is right now. There are a lot of nice directions we could take Tracks, but I am afraid I cannot do this with my available time. I also notice that I postpone other projects to work on bugs in Tracks which takes out the fun. And last but not least, I thing interest in Tracks is less these days, given the response to the email of BSAG and my pervious email about features for Tracks 2.1.
As BSAG explained, I will not be putting in a lot of my time in Tracks in the future. I'd like to do a 2.1 and probably 2.2 and then take a step back. This probably means I'll support Tracks for about a year or so with diminishing effort. As for Tracks resources. I'm all for migrating the wikiS and website to github. I do not have an alternative for the forum. I think they are very valuable to keep around, maybe in read-only state. Perhaps continue the forums on google code? This mailing list could then also be migrated to google. Reinier > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: BSAG [mailto:[email protected]] > Verzonden: zondag 10 juli 2011 13:25 > Aan: [email protected] > CC: Reinier Balt > Onderwerp: The future of the Tracks project - a call for volunteers > > Dear Tracks Users, > > I'm sorry for the rather portentious-sounding subject, but I'd like to discuss > the future of the project. First, let me start at the beginning... > > Back in 2004 (I think), I started reading about the GTD technique, and > realised > it would be a great help in getting myself organised. At the time, there were > really no applications for GTD: no native applications for my own platform of > choice (Mac), and really nothing in the way of web applications either. I was > getting interested in Ruby on Rails at the time, and since I learn programming > languages more easily when I have a practical project to get my teeth into, I > decided to see if I could build a simple GTD web application using Rails. I > did > that, and since other people expressed an interest in it, decided to Open > Source it so that anyone could use it and/or improve it. > > I was really happy that Tracks attracted lots of very talented developers over > the years, and they (those of you reading this know who you are!) have > done a terrific job of improving and extending Tracks. What started as my > rather simple and scruffy application has gained immeasurably from the time, > talent, expertise and effort that many people have kindly put into it. I would > like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for all you have done for > the > project > - not just the people who have contributed to development, but to > everyone who has helped answer questions in the forum, solved problems, > evangelised or otherwise helped to make Tracks such a great community. > > Now we come to the present. For several years, my job has got more and > more demanding and stressful, and I have had less time to devote to Tracks. > Also in the years since I first developed it, lots of excellent GTD > applications > have been developed. It's a difficult admission to make, but I no longer use > Tracks day-to-day, because these other applications happen to fit my > particular style of working better. Since I no longer 'eat my own dog food', I > feel hypocritical about being involved with Tracks, and it is difficult for > me to > even provide support for Tracks users, since I'm not involved with the nitty > gritty day to day any more. Even though I am only involved in maintaining the > site and fielding email enquiries now, the guilt about not doing more is > getting to me. I'm the kind of person who has to avoid even *looking* at the > unread count in my work mail account while on holiday, because otherwise I > would instantly feel guilty about not responding. So continuing at this level > of > involvement isn't really an option for me. > > I had hoped that as I stepped back, a team of volunteers would naturally > develop who could take over the project. For the past several years, Reinier > Balt has done an absolutely brilliant job of taking on the vast majority of > the > development and supporting users on the forum, but one person does not > make a team! I have talked to Reinier about this, and as his free time is also > diminishing, he is understandably not willing to take over the project on his > own. > > So this email/forum post is really to canvas opinion to see if there is a > group > of users out there who might be willing to curate the project, and if not, how > we can best set things up to ensure that Tracks and the related resources > continue to be available to users. > > One option would be to create an 'Organisation' for Tracks on GitHub and > move over the web pages and wiki. One reason for doing this is that the > biggest sink for my time at the moment is having to remove spammy users > from the forum and wiki. GitHub seems to fare better in that respect, so it > would mean less work for anyone taking over. The biggest stumbling block to > this plan is the forum: there is a lot of very valuable information in the > forum, > so it would be good to preserve what we already have as some kind of static > site if possible. > However, GitHub doesn't really have a drop-in replacement for the forum > (unless we used 'Issues' for that purpose), so it is not clear how we would > replace it. > > I am happy to transfer ownership of the getontracks.org domain to a team > taking over, and also the balance of the money donated to the project (after > subtracting what I have spent on domain registration/renewal for the > project, ExpressionEngine licences etc.). > > So, it's down to you now: how do you see the future of Tracks? > > Many thanks, > > bsag > > -- > but she's a girl - the weblog of a female geek http://www.rousette.org.uk > [email protected] _______________________________________________ Tracks-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.rousette.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/tracks-discuss
