David,
I began to wrote something about some of the aspects explained in your message.
But I had to stop because it was not even neutral, but too much negative (I'm a
rebel ;o)
So thank you for this objective point of view and positive explanation!
Jacques
From: "David E Jones" <[email protected]>
I think I understand the disconnect. Based on that idea it makes sense
that you are frustrated.
No, there is no "Board of Directors" (except the ASF Board, but that's
still different). There is a Project Management Committee (PMC), but
the PMC is only responsible for general administration like voting on
new committers and PMC members, voting on releases and other major
project activities, and when necessary vote to resolve conflicts
(should be avoided whenever possible, and it usually is). In no way is
the PMC any sort of top-down management group. OFBiz has always been
this way, and the practice has become more formal now that the project
is part of the Apache Software Foundation. For more ASF details about
the PMC, please see:
http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html#structure
In any case, the interesting part of a community driven project like
OFBiz is that the roles are defined differently. For example, you
mentioned in another email that you consider yourself an "outsider"
and in reality no one but you decides if you are an outsider or an
insider, and actually with so many different ways to participate those
terms don't mean much. In my opinion, you are very much an insider.
In a traditional top-down organization there are people with power who
tell other people what to do. The others do what they are told because
their motivation is influenced by money, fear, hope... or usually some
combination of these things.
A community-driven open source project, like OFBiz, is a purely
voluntary organization. Anyone can volunteer to become a "boss" and
try to get other people to do things. The trick is that you can't be a
"boss" in the normal meaning of the term, ie you can't just tell other
people what to do. The approaches that work here are collaboration and
to some extent influence through the power of ideas (and sometimes the
power of personality and position, but in a group of people like this
that usually causes problems instead of being helpful, even if not
intentionally used as people assume you are using it).
And so, we have the fun opportunity to work with others in a purely
voluntary way. We don't get a chance to do that much. Sometimes
companies work in that way to some extent, but usually managers try to
get around the difficult problems that arise when people believe they
are interacting on a voluntary basis. With government unfortunately
things are very much not voluntary. Perhaps they have been in
different times and places, but I'm not aware of any government that
exists like that now.
-David
On Oct 12, 2009, at 7:32 AM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hello David:
IMHO, that is a cop-out. Does the project have a "Board-of-
Directors" or other governing body? If so, where is the leadership
here? Software development is not just about committing code to a
repository. It is just as much about planning, testing and taking
responsibility for one's actions.
Regards,
Ruth
David E Jones wrote:
Just in case it's helpful:
On Oct 11, 2009, at 5:14 PM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hi Scott:
Sorry to say there isn't enough time in the day for me to report
all the rendering problems I see in this release. For example, try
adding a product to the cart and observe how the the shopping cart
summary links (on the right column) under "Cart Summary" overlap
each other. Or, attempt to do a quick checkout (without logging
in) and observe that the left column renders on the left bottom of
the page starting at a horizontal position below the right column
- leaving a huge empty white space between the left margin of the
browser and the right column.
Helpful, actionable comments.
I'm just a little discouraged at how little testing is done with
each new release. It seems to get worse and not better as time
goes on.
Not actionable comments. One could look at the history and see who
changed what to see how this actually came about, otherwise it's
just in the bucket of "someone did something and we'll all have to
wait until someone (possibly someone else) fixes it."
-David
Regards,
Ruth
----------------------------------------------------
Ruth Hoffman, Author, Mentor & OFBiz Enthusiast
[email protected]
Looking for more OFBiz info, please visit my website: http://www.myofbiz.com
Scott Gray wrote:
Hi Ruth
The demo is just a checkout of the trunk so the issue is for
whoever maintains OFBiz (the community) rather than the demo
server. Please feel free to create a jira issue for the problem.
Regards
Scott
HotWax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
On 12/10/2009, at 11:23 AM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
To Whoever Maintains the Demo Server:
http://demo.ofbiz.org/ecommerce
Try searching on GZ-BASKET and observe the results. Quick
synopsis of problem: The first entry is rendered properly but
then the subsequent results fall below both side bar columns
(regardless of how I resize my browser.) I can't capture a
screen shot of this because I am not able to display all entries
within the bounds of my 15" display.
I'm using Firefox 3.5.3 on a MAC 10.4
Regards,
Ruth
----------------------------------------------------
Ruth Hoffman, Author, Mentor & OFBiz Enthusiast
[email protected]
Looking for more OFBiz info, please visit my website: http://www.myofbiz.com
