[Vtigercrm-developers] how to make vtiger more community oriented?

Fri Jun 16 00:42:23 PDT 2006

Hi!

First let me say I'm very happy to see this discussion starting! Cheers to 
Ritchie and others!

One thing I belive that would benefit vTiger's "Community factor" would be 
a regular maintenance schedule for the current production stream - 4.2.x

I think we should form a sub-team of community developers that would be 
primarily involved with this: bugfixes and usability tuning for 4.2.x and 
would regularily prepere new releases of this stream.

I know a lot of people currently use 4.2.x either in their companies or 
host it for others - I know we do :) And because of that we all get 
regular issues reported from users - ranging from "things not working" 
aka. "bugs" :) to "can you fine-tune this particular feature".

I think this feedback would be very beneficial both for the 4.2.x stream 
and as a source of ideas for 5.x - IF we track them and fix them, of 
course.

We've been working on fixing the 4.2.3 version and I am very happy to see 
the release of 4.2.4 - I must admit I lost confidence in it ever 
happening. 

When I compared the issues resolved in 4.2.4 with the ones we had to 
resolve ourselves I found some overlap, but found a lot of suff we fixed 
that's not in 4.2.4. I would be happy to post this fixes to the TRAC so 
that they can be included in 4.2.5. And I guess a lot of other people were 
doing the same and therefore have their fixes which they would post IF we 
provide guidance on how to do it.

If we all join forces we can make 4.2.5 a very stable version very quickly 
and then start working on (maybe) tuning the features for better end-user 
usability -> we've received a lot of feedback from users on parts of 
vTiger that are "not user friendly".

What do you think?

Matjaz Slak
matjaz.slak at atol.si

Atol d.o.o.  |  http://www.atol.si

Richie <richie at vtiger.com> 
Sent by: vtigercrm-developers-bounces at lists.vtigercrm.com
14.06.2006 18:48
Please respond to
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Re: [Vtigercrm-developers] how to make vtiger more      community 
oriented?

I will justify the case however difficult it might be. 

Yes, we did not answer the queries at certain points in time. But at that 
time, the focus was on getting the job done ourselves and that too fast 
and get the product out faster!There was also an impatience with teaching 
the other folks about how to do it as in the same amount of time, we would 
have got fixed the particular issue and lots more. 

Now, we realise that the product has grown too big to be handled by us 
alone and that too at the given speed that we work, it will not be proper 
to take up 
all the tasks ourselves. Hence the query for more community effort. 

You can state it as a phase of growth that we had to go through. 
There was no intention of "not-helping-out-folks". It was pure impatience. 

I will hasten to state that "it was not arrogance". 

"There should be some developer 
documents, API documentation and above all good support in 
Forum/Mailing List. I know that vtigerwiki has some stuff, but it's 
insufficent for a programmer. I strongly believe that making a good 
knowledge base is the key in Open Source Projects." 

Manilal, we are working on that. As you are aware, we are trying to get 
the code in a more simpler format (well, we are trying) and we are trying 
to get the 
APIs out too. If you are a bit more patient, we will have some How Tos too 
out in the open. The forum has stopped being the point for dev 
discussions. The mailing list is intended to be the place for dev 
discussions. Hence we did not answer the questions (okay, this might be a 
lame excuse but it holds at times :-) ) 

/sak, I know it is like looking into the funnel upside down but that is 
how it is. 
We do want to change but it will take some patience and should I say 
guidance to do the same. Manilal, I do remember asking you to be patient 
as we were working on building the basic guidelines itself. 

The entire process of taking out junk code, opening up the APIs with 
relatively 
proper documents, the planned website and wiki changes are all towards 
that 
end only. 

If you would have observed, I have myself admitted that I should have been 
more open and should have shared the street-talk that we have here with 
the community in large. Again, if you would have observed, I have started 
doing the same. It is not for taking credit but just to prove that I am 
trying to make things different from what they were. It will take time. 

I have in fact shared all the To-do lists of mine with you and realise 
that I should have done it long ago. 

Better late than never. 

I take all the blame for these "issues". I assure you we do want to be 
more open. Let us make a beginning. We over here, will keep the past in 
perspective so that the same mistakes are not committed again. 

BTW /sak, we cannot afford to ignore you guys, however much I hate JeffK 
;-)! 

Come on guys, is no one supporting me for a change ??? :-)! 

Richie 

---- Sergio A. Kessler<sergiokessler at gmail.com> wrote ---- 

I have to agree...

I can understand not having the time for replying to every end-user
question, in fact when I was the captain of an open source project, I
leave the end users helping each other...

there simply no time for developers to answer every stupid question...

but if you want the *developers* community help, you cannot afford to
ignore them, and then ask the same people to help...

On 6/14/06, Manilal K M <libregeek at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 14/06/06, Richie <richie at vtiger.com> wrote:
> >
> > I would like to get your views on making vtiger more
> > community oriented. The reason for this is
> > as follows :-
> >
> > a) It will free the core team for other tasks. Right
> > now, we are facing a shortage of hands in
> > fixing the issues,
> > testing the product, documentation, etc.
> >
> > We would like these to be off-loaded to an extent so
> > that we can continue further development.
> >
> > Things are working no doubt but in patches.
> >
> >
> > I would like to bring in more accountability,
> > automation and transparency into the
> > system.
> > Again, these will not be at the cost of flexibility
> > and speed.
> > The core team when left to itself can move very fast
> > but we need to move together. I am sure
> > we have people who have skills
> > supplementary/complementary to those of the core team.
> > The need is to make these work together thereby leading to
> > a fast,nimble and efficient community
> > thereby leading to a much better product.
> >
> >
> > I am sure we have gurus on board who have 'been
> > there, done that'. I welcome them to put
> > forth
> > their ideas on handling this issue.
> >
> >
> > Richie
> > _______________________________________________
>
> Hi Richie:
> I have only very limited experience(less than 6 months) in vtiger.
> Within this period I never felt that vtiger is a Open Source Project
> neither a Community project. The developers never mind to respond to
> development related questions. They may respond to some user related
> questions, but rejected developer questions. This is not good for a
> Community project. Of course it's the highlight of Proprietory
> projects, where the end user/developer has little control.
>
> I admit the fact that the developers are busy, but the fact
> remains that if a community project wants to succeed, then there
> should be somebody to make the guidelines for development and project
> management. I have posted a number of queries regarding developing new
> modules and module management in vtiger5. But none of them got a
> satisfactory reply. They are simply ignored by the developers. I know
> that vtiger5 is under development. But there are no changelog or
> changes which a programmer can refer with the released code. I am a
> member of other community projects like Horde and I was suprised with
> the support. Initially I got immense support from the horde developers
> so that I was able to learn the stuff in quick time and was able to
> contribute some good patches.
>
> Inorder to make vtiger community oriented, the first step should be
> taken from the developers itself. There should be some developer
> documents, API documentation and above all good support in
> Forum/Mailing List. I know that vtigerwiki has some stuff, but it's
> insufficent for a programmer. I strongly believe that making a good
> knowledge base is the key in Open Source Projects.
>
> See the result of my postings in mailing list and forums:
> 
http://lists.vtigercrm.com/pipermail/vtigercrm-developers/2006-March/000612.html

> http://forums.vtiger.com/viewtopic.php?t=6631
> http://forums.vtiger.com/viewtopic.php?t=4664
> 
http://lists.vtigercrm.com/pipermail/vtigercrm-developers/2006-April/000804.html

> 
http://lists.vtigercrm.com/pipermail/vtigercrm-developers/2006-May/000918.html

>
> See the Unanswered Postings in Forums:
> http://forums.vtiger.com/search.php?search_id=unanswered
>
> There are more than 2000 Postings which are unanswered !!!
>
> regards
> Manilal
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