[feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

davidm · 2006-02-23 11:31:09

I don’t agree with you steventer, this thread was not aimed at creating a fork. If we had wanted this, we wouldn’t have raised any issues and we would have forked already…

This thread is about acknowledging problems, debating and doing something about it ! And I think there are people here who are being constructive so let’s not make this debate about forking. While it could result in a fork (typically, if nothing happens and nothing moves), it’s not about a fork.

(And about Textplatter : if it ever comes to a fork, I have a far better name for it :P)

Last edited by davidm (2006-02-23 11:40:19)

alexandra · 2006-02-23 11:44:32

> davidm wrote:

I don’t agree with you steventer

Me too. Forking is no solution and i do not fancy that at all.

My desire/wish is getting a group of folks together guiding TXP for a while. We need some better administration/coordination.
Well, who would do the job?

Last edited by alexandra (2006-02-23 11:52:56)

steventer · 2006-02-23 11:51:48

Oh, I have no desire to get into an arguement at all, but if the dev’s aren’t listening to you, and you want to “guide TXP for a while” then you will have to fork. How can you say that forking is no solution? Forking would solve all your “problems” if you can fund sufficient volunteer coders.

alexandra · 2006-02-23 11:57:44

> steventer wrote:

> Forking would solve all your “problems”

It won´t. It would split a small community into two even smaller communities. Does not make any sense to me. However, who likes talking about forking can go on. Please open another thread then. I will not join any discussion on that!

davidm · 2006-02-23 12:29:25

Of course you’re free to speak your mind. No need to go ! I like being challenged, and getting to the bottom of things. The only thing I wanted was avoiding having Alex, Nils and my intentions twisted into what it is not. We don’t want to fork. We want to get things organized and have an idea of where we’re going.

But you’re right, if the dev are not listenning or if anything happens, well I won’t make a fork happen but I will certainly be gone definitely. This in itselft is no big deal. I am no coder nor I am a plugin writer. And Jeremie has all the skills (even more than I do !) to keep the french board running.

But my guess is, in time lots of people will drop out too and eventually a fork could happen, be it in 2 months, 6 months, a year… who knows ? And if talented people with vision want to fork, then I might just get on board, I won’t lie to you. It would really be a shame, but I have always thought 75% of the value of opensource software is community (but of course you can’t do anything without a talented dev team). Textpattern plugins are great example of this : I have never used Textpattern “as is” without installing several plugins. A modular approach is a good one, but it entails maintaining the dynamics of community around it.

And about the “having to fork part” : believe it or not, there are other flexible CMS now. At the time txp was launched it was pretty much the only solution allowing you to have control over your designs, with a smart tagging system, a really talented and fun community. It was ahead of its time. Now there are alternatives. A while ago, I crossed John Hicks on Expression Engine forums, saying he might make the switch… just an example.

Last edited by davidm (2006-02-23 12:33:15)

michaelkpate · 2006-02-23 12:30:53

Hey guys,

When I said “idol fantasies of forking,” that is what I meant. It was in no way, shape or form a proposal to do so. Although I think this has been a good discussion of why it would not be productive to do so.

It’s not a matter of convincing the developers of its merit. It’s a matter of convincing the developers that they ought to spend hours, weeks or months working without pay to build something, simply because someone else says they need it. – zem

Yes, but … So does that mean that the first thing the new board admin should do (should one be appointed) is delete the Feature Requests forum? Because there apparently is little point in posting something in there. Because I was careful to include “even if they submit their own patch.”

But … I am still confused: Is it the “weeks or months working to build something” or the “without pay” that is most relevant. The former could possibly be solved by exanding the dev team; the latter by offering a bounty (ex. someone says“I will pay X for feature Y”) or even a straight salary. That goes back to the point about Matt Mullenwegg above. He turned WordPress from a hobby to a business. His personal livelihood (and now those of the Automattic employees) is tied up in the success of WP. Is the reason for this thread being created because no one around here feels the same way.

Sorry to be so crass as to talk about money, but… I still have a barely-used Personal Unlimited license to Movable Type 3.x that I bought because I didn’t want petty restrictions to get in the way of stuff I wanted to do. Back during the heady days of MT licensing kerfluffle, I threw some cash into the WP effort. I don’t regret either of those decisions even if I get little out of it on a day-to-day basis. Is this all somehow related to the Textpatrons Paypal button and, if so, is that the way we can (at least help) “bring txp back on track?”

davidm · 2006-02-23 12:36:58

michaelkpate wrote: Is this all somehow related to the Textpatrons Paypal button and, if so, is that the way we can (at least help) “bring txp back on track?”

I don’t think donating would change anything to the current problems… for all the reason I have lengthily developped above…

alexandra · 2006-02-23 13:32:04

I don´t think talking about money is ‘crass’ – to me in fact it is pretty valid.

However, before we talk about money, i like to pick up issues we mentioned in our initial posting.
First of all a missing leader or leading group. TXP lacks coordination these days.

My suggestion for a leading team is: mary, david, hakjoon, zem.

I just throw this in …

TheEric · 2006-02-23 13:45:12

> zem wrote:

> It’s a matter of convincing the developers that they ought to spend hours, weeks or months working without pay to build something,
>simply because someone else says they need it.

It is this view that hampers TXP development. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it certainly is not the mindset an open source developer should possess whilst working on an open source project.

The way I see it, there are three possible outcomes to Textpattern :

1. It becomes commercial software with a perhaps a free, lesser-feature personal edition 2. It stagnates into oblivion with people becoming further frustated with the lack of communication. 3. It forks.

Last edited by TheEric (2006-02-23 13:45:41)

davidm · 2006-02-23 14:01:39

As much as I appreciate this vote of confidence, I am not sure I can fill those shoes now that I am part of MODx core team, taking care of Marketing and moderating the french board and doc there is a time-consuming task.

Still, I’ll gladly help in other areas where I could be of use.

Let’s remember what we suggested at the very beginning of this thread as far as distributing roles and responsibilities is concerned :

programmers (core development, plugin development, repository management)
designers (logo, website, interface design)
writers (manual, faq, localisation)
board admins and moderators

According to the wiki, so far we have Jeremie and hcgtv volunteering as board admin and moderator. More would be needed here. I don’t think it’s the dev job to admin and moderate the board. They have their hands full already with the code.

Obsviously, heading programmers team would be Zem, with his current team Sencer and Kusor. This could be expanded if some of the plugin writers have ideas or want to dedicate time to the core. This would both lighten the burden on the 3 main devs and bring a new impulse to the dev team.

The designers part could be headed by TheBombSite who actually (tell me if I am mistaken here) takes care of Texgarden. The thing here is to have a handful of designer helping him out. Mary could take up the admin interface styling, and get help from a dedicated team. Visual integration of all websites textpattern could be great for identity and communication.

As far as documentation is concerned, Destry is already doing a fantastic job and would need to have a dedicated team to help him go forward and maintain TextBook. But we’ll also need to decide what to do with textpattern.org and how it fits with the rest, and finally if Alicson can keep up taking care of it and if people could help us here.

Last but not least, we need someone or a group to coordinate all this into a coherent whole. Maybe having the teams coordinate via private forums (if you have ideas, shoot !), I mention this because this is the way we work at MODx and it’s running smooth. We have a Test, Release & QA forum, a documentation forum, a Marketing forum… etc, all under a “Project Team” board.

Last edited by davidm (2006-02-23 14:07:25)

wet · 2006-02-23 14:04:55

> alexandra wrote:

First of all a missing leader or leading group. TXP lacks coordination these days.
My suggestion for a leading team is: mary, david, hakjoon, zem.

Zem is in a position where he can already lead today, and he does. He has already posted his point of view several times and never indicated intentions to appreciate or adopt a more formal/bureaucratic/why-isn’t-there-a-roadmap approach. The txpERT group simply doesn’t share his view of how Textpattern has to be led. That’s a rather different story.

So, what will this leading team do that cannot be done today? They cannot force a developer to develop…

davidm · 2006-02-23 14:21:21

wet wrote: Zem is in a position where he can already lead today, and he does. He has already posted his point of view several times and never indicated intentions to appreciate or adopt a more formal/bureaucratic/why-isn’t-there-a-roadmap approach.

I am familiar with those post. I am not satisfied at all with this approach of leadership. Or to be more precise, not willing to go on with this community under this conditions (and in fact, I have been out the past 4 months).

Let’s be clear : of course no-one in its right mind would question Zem’s legitimacy as head of the dev team. I am certainly not saying he has not done a great job of taking over the job when Dean dropped out. If not for him, Sencer and Kusor, txp might have shipwrecked and the community too.

The goal is not to go bureaucratic, or to have a precise and detailed roadmap but at least have basic role distribution and cooperation and definitely a vision of where the dev team is going with the development. I think this is different.

The txpERT group simply doesn’t share his view of how Textpattern has to be led. That’s a rather different story.

I guess from the feedback so far some share our point of view about this…

So, what will this leading team do that cannot be done today? They cannot force a developer to develop…

Check all the ideas that have flowed through this thread…
Organize cooperation, fill empty seats, define vision for the future are a few that comes to mind…

Last edited by davidm (2006-02-23 14:22:04)

alexandra · 2006-02-23 14:37:14

zem said: So by all means discuss, come up with new ideas, contribute, and so on. That’s great, we could use the help.
I think that sais it all, wet.

Jeremie · 2006-02-23 14:37:53

I don’t think this is bureaucratic. I do agree more and more with the lack of leadership and vision. Sure, Zem is coding what he needs and think he might needs, and does a lot of support (on the forum, by editing the FAQ, a lot of things some people may forgot because of Zem’s style of posting.. very dry).

But I’m sure there are some capable developers on the dev mailing list that can do more, if asked/offered/giving the means to. SOme may want to improve TXP on overall.

And the lack of leadership/vision/roadmap is felted. We have been told that 4.0 is pretty much lock down. So if I want to adress, in details, several critical things missing in TXP (like being unable to simply link from an article to another) would that be for 4.1 ? How much time do I have ? Is crockery 4.1 ? Are other key feture planned for 4.1 that I may have to merge with my proposal ?

And we have being down the “just do it” road. Some of us had done some work (and for some task, I’m talking dozens and dozens of hours of work) that has gone into oblivion.

Another example. How about some localised main TXP websites ? I know Davidm had several times asked for a textpattern.fr, or a fr.textpattern.com, and was willing to write it. No answer. That wasn’t last week, more like 6 month ago.

Etc, etc etc.

In other word, outside the pure PHP coding, we do need some people to ask for specific help, and grant the tools to do it to people willingful.

Last edited by Jeremie (2006-02-23 14:41:52)

tal · 2006-02-23 14:55:24

I vote for txp becoming a commercial software. At least I’d be willing to pay for it.

Just a thought…

> alexandra wrote:

> I don´t think talking about money is ‘crass’ – to me in fact it is pretty valid.

However, before we talk about money, i like to pick up issues we mentioned in our initial posting.
First of all a missing leader or leading group. TXP lacks coordination these days.

My suggestion for a leading team is: mary, david, hakjoon, zem.

I just throw this in …

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#31 2006-02-23 11:31:09

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#32 2006-02-23 11:44:32

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#33 2006-02-23 11:51:48

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#34 2006-02-23 11:57:44

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#35 2006-02-23 12:29:25

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#36 2006-02-23 12:30:53

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#37 2006-02-23 12:36:58

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#38 2006-02-23 13:32:04

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#39 2006-02-23 13:45:12

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#40 2006-02-23 14:01:39

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#41 2006-02-23 14:04:55

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#42 2006-02-23 14:21:21

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#43 2006-02-23 14:37:14

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#44 2006-02-23 14:37:53

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#45 2006-02-23 14:55:24

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

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