On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 3:46 PM, Heiko Schulz wrote:
> But as an example on my homepage, I have my own password and username for
> ftp-upload, and If my homepage would be the official FGFS-homepage, I could
> share this password to trustworthy developers and maintainer here as Martin
> and others ...
>
I'm sure there are many ways to work things out. But one of the nice things
about the current system is that all developer contributions are managed and
tracked through our version control system before they get pushed up to the
web server. If everyone had direct access, some similar system would still
need to be setup so that changes don't step on each other. And I really
like having changes tracked through CVS. I avoid remote editing of the web
content ... most services don't even allow that and it's often slow behind
my dsl connnection, but I'm lucky and have arranged ssh access to the web
tree because the service provider (frozenwebhost.com) is a friend of the
FlightGear project so I can go physically manipulate things if I need to.
We get special attention from the provider, so I feel this is a pretty good
place to host our site. And I'm not afraid to put in a plug for
frozenwebhost.com at the same time ... I've been real happy with their
service. There's been a couple minor glitches over the years, but it's not
like when google goes off line and half the world heads to the pub because
there's nothing else you can actually accomplish.
> In the forum I noticed that people have really bad issues to find certain
> things on the homepage,
>
The web site has undergone reconstruction and reorganization a few times
over the years. It's a lot better than when it first started out. That
said, of course things could be improved. I'm not able to watch the forum
closely. What things were discussed there that are hard to find?
I don't mean to complain, but people within the FlightGear community
communicate in a large variety of ways, and many issues are discussed. I
have to work for a living so I can't sit on IRC all day, I can't read every
forum posting, and I'm lucky to at least try to skim all the dev list
traffic and pick out what I understand or what I think applies to or affects
me.
There seems to be a perception that if someone has complained about
something, or mentioned something, or voiced an issue or concern ... and has
done that somewhere and at some point in the history of the universe, then I
should be aware of it, and should have addressed it already ...
Unfortunately, I'm well aware of my physical and mental and time limits
because I seem to be hitting up against them every day.
So if there are situations where there are problems or concerns, and I
haven't provided a mechanism for someone to be able to address this, then
that's certainly something where I'm fair game for criticism.
However, I seem to periodically take heat for issues that have never been
brought to my attention because apparently there is a general impression
that I'm able to read and remember every comment in every flightgear
communication forum. That's simply not the case, so if something hasn't
been brought to my personal attention, I don't feel it's tremendously fair
to complain that I haven't addressed the issue. I can't deal with things I
don't know about.
And even when issues are brought to my attention ... we are all volunteers
here ... I take time out of my paying work I'm a consultant and have to log
my individual working hours on the various projects I get paid for. So
when I take time out of my day for FlightGear activities (as I often do and
am doing right now) that cuts into my monthly income. It's not like I'm a
salaried employee that can sluff a few minutes here and there for non-work
activities. So when I put too much time into FlightGear, I really see the
effects on my bank account. I'm not complaining, I love being involved in
the FilghtGear project. I'm just pointing out that I continue to invest a
huge amount of my personal time into the project often at my own personal
expense. So if something is brought to my attention and still isn't
addressed in a timely manner, I'd simply request the same amount of patience
you would give to yourself or any other volunteer FlightGear developer.
I think we all (including some of the more negatively vocal people on this
list) have projects that haven't gotten done as fast as we hoped they would,
and I bet we all have unfinished work and work we've had to set aside when
personal and job priorities flare up and have to take precidence.
and all the advertisement make FlightGear-project doesn't look professionel.
>
Quick word on this subject ... the revenue helps maintain the site, pay for
domain names, etc. It's a balance of factors, but I prefer hosting our web
site with a professional service. That doesn't mean they are always
perfect, but if we piggy back off people's personal web sites or personal
servers, there's more of a chance that these could go offline with zero
warning. Maybe I'm getting old, but I've seen that happen a number of times
now, and have been on the scrambling end of trying to pull something
together again when the orginal content is no longer available, the person
can't be contacted, etc. There are always single points of failure ... even
now.
I guess I would suggest that if there are problems with the system, it's
great to discuss them as you are doing now. I appreciate you voicing your
issues, and hopefully you can clarify some of the additional issues you
reference but do not detail. But at some point, with some people, it starts
to seem like they are more interested in arguing and trotting out all their
perpetual sore spots than finding ways to make the system work. And for
those people, that's ok if that's how you want to approach life, I'm a big
boy, and all my clothes are at least 50% asbestos :-) but it's certainly not
productive and motivational if your end goal is to accomplish something
useful.
A Content Manage System could help with the issues on the calender, and
> giving access to other developers to certain parts of the homepage,so it
> would be much easier for you to maintain flightgear.org.
> Do you get what I meant?
>
What do you mean by a content mangement system? Version control? Wiki?
Thanks,
Curt.
--
Curtis Olson: http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/
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