--- Martijn Faassen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi there, > > I've read parts of the open letter threads just now. > There's a lot of > talk about how if only we have better tools the > whole process will go > better and Zope will get more contributors. > > That's a typical hacker response, and I do this > myself as well. > Throwing more technology at a problem doesn't always > make a problem go > away. And though technological solutions to social > problems are nice if > you can have them, and we should look for them, they > don't always work.
I agree, the problem is more social than technological. However, cool technology that saves time rather than wastes it, makes contributing a pleasure rather than a pain, would be a great benefit IMHO. I was actually really down on Zope on Wed and Thurs. I was about ready to go and do something myself. Mostly writing and theorizing at first and then developing. However, Friday turned me around. I don't want to start from scratch, it's too hard. I don't want to "build" a community from scratch, it's damn near impossible. We've already got a tremendous community here, and it hasn't realized its potential even. So, I decided to stay here and do my theorizing and tinkering with Zope stuff, even if I'm not in 100% agreement with the way everything is done. And if nobody likes what I do, then I'll have my own Zope the way I want it thank you. If people like it then fine, they can have it. Nothing technological changed my mind, it was purely social. > I'm not convinced more technology will make the dead > fish problem go > away. I think the contributing process is in fact > too heavyweight. It > should be easier for people to get in drastic > changes to Zope. The only > way for people to take more responsibility if they > can actually have it. > Only a few people will take it, but that's more than > what is possible > now, with possibly the single exception of my taking > responsibility for > ParsedXML. And until recently I was still in the > position of doubting > whether I really had it formally, not just de-facto. > I kept asking for > approval and guidelines from the official > maintainers, but they were too > busy (no blame to them), so I went It will be a slow and deliberate process to allow "outsiders" the ability to make big waves. It has to be in many respects. But I think each contributor will slowly make part of the core their own and take the initiative with it. > > I dread having to go through the fishbowl to add in > my 'node path' > implementation to ParsedXML. I've done the design > work, > I've implemented most of it, and I feel I'd have > mostly wasted time writing > a fishbowl proposal. I hadn't even explored the > problem enough to be able > to do that. I needed to prototype it to understand > it. I've discussed some > issues with people locally and and on the Zope-XML > mailing list. And > I'll probably release a version in a few days. Yes, prototypes are extremely valuable, more-so than fishbowl proposals to us hackers. But not everyone can appreciate a prototype, because the audience for feedback is not always hackers. Making a prototype work for non-techies is a lot of work too... > > Perhaps adding Formulator to the Zope core would be > nice eventually. But > going through the fishbowl bureaucracy would take > forever. I only have so > much time to spend on it, and I'd rather spend time > improving the product > itself. Yup, there needs to be people charged with analysing and taking outside products and integrating them with the core platform. A process to do this should be put in place. > > And now look at how the Zope core is actually being > developed. Sure, > there's lots of stuff in the fishbowl about what the > Zope future should be like. > Plenty of stuff, though some stuff is rather hard to > find. But I have a lot > of praise for what the Zope Corp people have > accomplished it it; it's a lot > better than having no such thing at all, even if > it's only used as > a notification service in part. I agree. It's better than nothing. > The main thinking about the directions of Zope is > not done in the fishbowl or > on the lists, it's in the minds of the talented > people at Zope Corp and in > the brainstorm sessions they hold together. That's > the natural way people > work. I work that way too. Such a process can occur > on mailing lists as > well, but it's very hard to break into it. I've > tried several times. > I'll keep trying as I'm convinced it's possible, but > it takes a lot of > persistence. Time will tell. On the Zope-XML list I > just post regular updates > about my thinking to encourage discussion, and > sometimes that works. There needs to be some way to elicit discussion. Again, I think this is a social issue. We need to "market" the idea that the community voice matters, and that feedback is a valuable contribution, no matter at what level it comes from or how it is made. I intend to try to do this in whatever ways I can think of. > > So what am I trying to get at with this mail? One > thing is that > the process is too heavy-weight right now. The other > thing is that > the core coders at Zope Corp are in a position > nobody else is in, and > that should change. They are the only ones that can > get around the > fishbowl if they so desire. They can use the > fishbowl in effect as a > notification service. Not that they want to; I don't > doubt their > good intentions for one minute. That probably won't happen until a significant core module is in the hands of an outside community member. Then I think it can happen readily. > > But I want to be able to use it like that too when I > need to. Others > should be able to as well. I think I and a few other > contributors are > slowly getting to that position, but it happens too > slowly and takes way > too much persistence now. So let's trade in some > risks to the Zope core > development (rash action and messed up stuff > happening once every while), > in exchange for a lot more active contributors. Once the testing framework is totally nailed down so that all the requirements can be accounted for, then I think this might be possible. I don't know how close we are to that tho... > > Regards, > > Martijn > I think these discussions are incredibly healthy. Lets keep up the dialog. -Casey __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Buy the perfect holiday gifts at Yahoo! Shopping. http://shopping.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Zope-Dev maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope )