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

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 …

reid · 2006-02-23 15:34:37

Let me start by saying I don’t want to sound like I’m condemning this whole thread. I realize there are issues and problems worthy of discussion. A forum admin, for example.

But, I gotta agree with Steve. If you don’t want to fork it, exactly what are you asking, and of whom? It appears you want the devs, at the very least, to put more time into it to organize and handoff duties to others. Which would be a pretty signifact change in the way things have been done, so it’s not a “flip of the switch.” It requires … time. Of which people (both devs and users) seem to have very little.

You point to Ubernostrums article from July, 2005, but don’t note that about 3 weeks later in August, we got Txp 4.0. And then 4.0.1, 4.0.2, 4.0.3, and crockery in the works.

Yet you say “we started worrying about the situation (which was like 6/8 months ago in my case” … um, that was about exactly the time 4.0 was released. Why did that worry you? Three releases during that 6 to 8 months, the most recent of which will be two months old next week.

Here’s my observation, from following this community for two years now, as well as other open source ventures. No one is ever pleased. Everyone always wants more. The devs never do enough. Every new feature takes too long. Dean never offers enough info, dog pictures, or cheese.

I’m not suggesting there aren’t issues or problems that need to be addressed. I’m suggesting that is the perpetual state of software development. It’s never done. It’s never enough. But it always moves forward.

Here’s an example. I recently spent $400 to upgrade a massive software package that is on a 18 month development cycle. No point releases. No road map. No manual. Pretty much nothing during the same time period that Txp went from gamma 1.19 through several RC versions and on to 4.0-4.0.3.

And I pay a whole lot of money for it. Here, I think often we take for granted what we get for free, as well as how often we get it.

I’m hearing a lot of “if things stay the same, I’m gone.” I’d hate to see that happen to anyone who contributes to the community. But I think maybe you need to refresh your memories on the fights and hub-bubs that have occurred over the past year in the WP and MT communities, over a variety of issues. That’s not greener grass, it’s just a different shade of green.

I also think some of you are also giving short shrift to the money issue. I get people who complain to me because I haven’t updated the free syles I offered for gamma 1.19 and RC1 … back when nearly no one was offering any styles. I’ve had an email wondering why I wasn’t joining in the template contest. And the answer is simple: I am the sole income for my family, and they take priority over every one of you. They always will.

If anyone thinks that kind of behavior from a contributor (or a dev) is unfair to Textpattern, I would suggest you check your expectations for some serious flaws. Because I get 1/10,000th of the complaints Dean and the devs get.

The underlying undertone of parts of this thread seems to be that the devs need to sacrifice a bit more of their time to free work, or put more free work into making their free work pay so that they can do more of it for us. And if they tell us they simply don’t have more free time to devote due to income-producing concerns, that’s somehow a fault.

What’s best for the collective often is not what’s best for the individuals within the collective. And if those individuals do not find a way to thrive financially, they are no longer a part of the collective … at all.

It’s also quite a contrast that two months ago there was a big effort to give the devs some Christmas gifts … as thanks for the work they put in. By shortly after Valentine’s Day, here we are declaring an emergency and lowering the lifeboats.

Anyway, that’s my two cents. I’m happy with Textpattern, and expect great future developments. But I also try to be realistic about the speed of development, and the fact that Textpattern is not and has never been a full time gig for anybody.

The future never comes as fast as we want. But it comes relentlessly nonetheless.

Jeremie · 2006-02-23 15:48:00

Most of all, very true, Reid. And some need to understand that.

However, I don’t think that it was’s being discussed. For the most part, it’s out of the dev job (whatever dev). It’s around the forum, the communication, the localisation.

Then, there are some dev oriented issues. It’s pretty similar to the last similar thread, around 1.0RC2~3. And just after that, the dev team increased, and a final version was released. But dev issues are not the all part of it, nor do they are the core of it. At least, in my point of view.

alexandra · 2006-02-23 15:50:43

@reid
it seems you are way behind… please read our initial post again. noone is talking about the speed of development!! we talk about the lack of guidance, coordination … etc… concerning the project as a whole.

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#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 !

#46 2006-02-23 15:34:37

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

#47 2006-02-23 15:48:00

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

#48 2006-02-23 15:50:43

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

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