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

wet · 2006-02-23 07:38:34

> hcgtv wrote:

> Michael, you fork the code by just announcing the new project, then hope for volunteers.

TextPatern ;-)

hcgtv · 2006-02-23 07:59:27

wet wrote:
TextPatern ;-)

My vote’s on TextNuke :)

Jeremie · 2006-02-23 10:11:22

hcgtv wrote:
My vote’s on TextNuke :)

Not fun, I’m having a heart attack right now :-\

On the Theme Engine thing, there’s a forum and threads to talk about it. There are number of issues that you and I can fix before the dev team work on it.

hcgtv · 2006-02-23 10:46:31

Jeremie,

I read the forum posts, which led me to the wiki page that zem wrote about Themes. I’m so new to TXP, don’t know what I could add, maybe my experience with other systems?

davidm · 2006-02-23 11:02:35

<em>oops, once again a long post, I missed those funny remarks guys… yeah TextNuke => lol Certainly not… </em>

hakjoon wrote: I definitely agree with the thoughts behind this initiative and I see it as a testimony to how much the users care about TXP, so count me as a 4th person running amuck :)
I didn’t want the valid issues that are being brought up sidetracked because I didn’t chose my words correctly.

Thanks for the support :) and further clarification.
And also for the FreshlyPressed example, nice one which I missed…

neutrino wrote: I’ve seen a hundred great ideas (like the plugin respository and the redesign of the resources site) but there seems to be a general lack of cohesiveness in direction (I’m totally guilty here, myself—I drop in and out) both to the software and to the communal effort. (…)What’s my point? A suggestion perhaps. Some one thing should tie TXP together for the uninitiated. (…) I am glad you all brought this up—it was a vague icky feeling (especially after Mary left and now appears as that cat that doesn’t quite trust the food being offered (hi Mary)) but now feels like there’s hope (or at least a diagnosis) again. Very cool, txpERT. Of course, some of it really is work for all of us (the HUD auditors have been in my office for weeks).

Other food for thought here, nice ideas. It’s exactly the kind of dynamics we need to make things move forward.
About the icky feeling : when we started worrying about the situation (which was like 6/8 months ago in my case), we started discussing with fellow textpatterners what their feeling was and we got many people reporting the same feeling. Mary’s leaving sure did help us taking the leap and launching a debate about it. We had a few contacts, did a lot of talking because we knew it would not be easy bringing this up. For me it was a matter of either doing this or simply dropping out of the community, which I more or less have those past 3 months…

TheEric wrote: Hmm. This particular subject has come up many times in regards to Textpattern. I don’t think it’s something that is ever going to change… At least, not under the Textpattern name.

A lot of people seem to think the same. When we discussed all this, many had no hope of making things moving, some said everything was OK with the project (but it depends what you expect of it, of course).

A lot projects in similar situation generated a fork. Etomite is a good example, the main dev left and things started lacking cohesion and purpose. At some point, a bunch of dev having worked on an Etomite mod (MODx) got tired of nothing happening (mainly, the new dev team was bug fixing and little more) and just forked. It gave birth to MODx CMS, which know is far better than its elder brother. It happens, it’s part of opensource communities life cycle. But don’t get me wrong : not every fork is a success or even a good decision, and by far.

This being said, we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think the community had the resource to make things better :)
The first feedback just shows how much people care about this project and that given proper guidance, they are willing to contribute and put in extra time and effort.

hcgtv wrote: zem, is it true that you ‘have grown increasingly concerned about TXP’s future’?

hcgtv, this bit of text was collectively written by Alex, Nils and I, and once again the dev team had nothing to do with writing this statement… let’s make that perfectly clear.

zem wrote: 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. The core developers aren’t any different to anyone else on the forum in that respect. They don’t get paid to spend time here, fix bugs, troubleshoot problems, write documentation, comply with feature requests, or release new versions. We all do that in our own time. So by all means discuss, come up with new ideas, contribute, and so on.

As I said above, I don’t think this reasonning can work with opensource development. Otherwise, why not just code it and sell it ? The whole point of the opensource thing is feeding from user’s suggestions to make the app more usable, user-oriented and thus often better than the commercial competition. Same goes for designers input, as I said, as far as accessiblity, templating or hunt for hardcoded styles in the code. Also same goes for plugin writers, adding features and expandability to your software. Not to mention bug reports.

The better textpattern is, the more likely you’ll sell your services using it ! It’s not like there is no competition here, let’s remember that. And I’ll repeat myself but in the case of Textpattern, let’s remember Dean had a philosophy, a vision when he launched it. Lots of it being user and designer oriented. Read textpattern.com again !

zem wrote: That’s great, we could use the help. But please, when you’re talking about what someone should do, or what someone hasn’t done,
remember that volunteering is supposed to be something you do, not something you do to someone else.

Volunteering is most definitely somehting you do, we agree.

But people won’t do it for its own sake and self declare themselves volonteering for something if they don’t where they go and where they stand. Like anything team related, nobody will do anything if you don’t set goals, roles and responsibilities.

Last edited by davidm (2006-02-23 11:25:25)

steventer · 2006-02-23 11:23:22

To my eyes, the inevitable conclusion of this thread will be the announcement of a fork. Do it already. Let the users decide where they want to go with the code. I’m sure there’ll be enough volunteers among the plugin developers.

PS Let’s call it “Textplatter”: serve your content up any way you please :)

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?”

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#25 2006-02-23 07:38:34

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

#26 2006-02-23 07:59:27

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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