Hi Martin, here we go!
On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 7:27 PM, Martin Schönberger <[email protected]>wrote: > Hello again! > > First of all, let me express my thanks to all of you who joined in on > this thread (started at > http://lists.xwiki.org/pipermail/devs/2012-April/050416.html) to > support me in my quest to better understand the way open source > development works in XWiki. :) > > As I've mentioned in my last email, I have some more questions I would > like to ask. Last time I focused on general aspects of the process, > today's topics revolve around the project's architecture, roles and > governance, and knowledge management. > > So my first question this time concerns the architectural design, and > how it has evolved over time. Did the basic structure change / grow > significantly since the early days of XWiki? Vincent mentioned the > change from a monolithic code to small modules. Were these and other > changes made in some major refactorings, or rather through steady > refinement? To what degree is it an issue to keep backwards > compatibility between releases? > I'm not very qualified to answer this one, but here goes. XWiki has had user that started using the software in its early days (I have an example from around 2006 in mind) who are still using the software today and successfully managed to upgrade from version 0.9 to version 3.5.1 and still have their wiki functional. XWiki has many enterprise users, for whom backward compatibility is very important. So the XWiki dev community has always been careful not to break too many things at once and provide an upgrade path from one version to the next. Major changes (such as the switch to a new syntax) came with a migrator to help handling them. It is sometimes tough to maintain backward compatibility, but it's a major priority of the dev team. Also I am interested more closely how the functions and > responsibilities are divided in the team. Caty wrote about 'very clear > departments' in her last answer, and the teampage on XWiki.com lists a > multitude of different and specific roles. Both of your descriptions > of the testing process, however, suggests a less strict separation of > tasks. So what role do the roles play? How specialized or > cross-functional are the teams and people working therein? Is there a > difference between XWiki.org and XWiki SAS? > As Vincent explained, yes, there is a difference. While the company is organized in a more traditional way, with a division of responsibilities, in the XWiki.org there are only committers and contributors, with no other formal title. Everyone is encouraged to participate according to their abilities, be that coding, documenting, testing or communicating. In addition to this, a lot of members of the community are not related to the company whatsoever. You can find out more about them here: http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/HallOfFame In a related matter, many of the role descriptions of the core > developers contain manager and leadership titles. What, in practice, > are the main tasks of the people managing the development? Many > meritocracies have safety nets, some rules to follow or people to go > to when no consensus can be reached on important topics. Did this ever > occur in XWiki? What would be done in such a situation? Have either > the formal roles or the informal merit people earned in a special > field some kind of influence on the weight of their voice in a > dispute? > I don't have much to add to Vincent's answer here. The important thing to keep in mind is that when taking part to the community, your XWiki SAS title plays no part. For instance in my case, the weight of my remarks would come from my past involvement in the community (writing documentation, taking part to discussion about features, testing the product) rather my XWiki SAS role. And last but not least some questions about the access and > distribution of knowledge: XWiki features an extensive written > documentation of itself and the process used in its development. What > is the role then of additional, personal communication, of the > proverbial informal talk at the water cooler? Is the necessary time > and ceremony of written documentation always justified by making the > knowledge permanently available to everyone, or can you think of > exceptions? > When starting to work with a new piece of technology, even with the best documentation in the world there will be times when you will need to ask questions and have a discussion with others. This can happen in real life (and it does a lot at the office), but also through Skype or IRC. XWiki devs and users try to make themselves available to answer questions from users and newcomers, which greatly contributes to the sense of community around XWiki. Guillaume > Again, every answer or comment is greatly appreciated, > > Martin > _______________________________________________ > devs mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
