is it an opensource project or not / can you participate (in which degree or under what structure whatever) or not?
What does outside contribution necessarily have to do with open source? This seems to be a common misconception about OSS. Lots of OSS projects do allow outside contributions, but not all, and it's certainly not a requirement for something to be considered "open source".
Rolando:
Depending on Ilija's decision I am thinking of forking.
As far as I can tell you want to fork either because A) you want to contribute code but can't, or B) you want someone to work on aC full time but Ilija can't. I fail to see how forking will solve either of these problems or, indeed, how it will do more good than harm to either branch in the long run.
There are lots of good reasons to fork OSS projects, but nothing discussed here qualifies, IMO. A few UI issues notwithstanding, aC is coming along nicely and is shaping up to be a widely-adopted application. If you're only problem is development speed I suggest you use Debian for a while to find out what long release cycles are really like.
I've been following this thread for a bit and think I should quickly echo some opinions here. In this situation, a fork would be a bad idea IMO.
Too many times I've seen Project A chug along just fine, a small group of people get unhappy for some reason, and fork into Project B. The community splits, (sometimes shifts fully to Project B) and Project B dies because the people who forked it aren't committed for long term management. In fact, if you look at trends in forking, many developers who fork a project have forked many others in the past, most of which are dead. In the mean time, the producers of Project A feel rejected and hurt (maybe rightly so) and kill their project too. The community is left with no project at all. I have a feeling most of us here have heard of PHP Collab [http://www.php-collab.org]?
Come on. Ilija has a full time gig. You can't ask him to devote too much time to this project unless it's a viable source of income.
My advice to people who want to fork: Take the current version. Code your heart out. Make it your own. That's the great thing about open source. But don't lure people away from AC and tell them you're going to manage a project long term. You wont'.
This page has been open in a tab ever since Viceroy's post but replying to something like this takes time and concentration in order not to make mistakes that I made in previous post and not to say something that I'll regret in future. That is the sole reason why I haven't replied earlier.
I sometimes tell things that I don't think when I'm tired or nervous. One of those things is "mumbo jumbo". What I meant to say is more like "and all things related to open source". Sorry for that, I haven't realized that that could be such a problem. English is not my native language and I was not aware how badly can that be interpreted.
Now, back to the topic.
I am pretty much tired of situation where I need to work for living on one side and wanting to work on this project (and some related projects). Trust me on this - it sucks big time!
Because of that one of goals is to transform this into sustainable business. Please note this word and remember that I keep repeating it ever since this project launched - sustainable. It does not mean: goal for this month is to raise $1000 so Ilija can pay the rent. It means business that provides solid income and that can grow in time. Imagine a team of programmers, support guys and designers working on activeCollab and related projects full time. Now imagine guys who work in companies X, Y and Z and hack the system while their project managers are not watching. I prefer option #1.
Goal is to create a great collaboration tool, not meet everybody's expectations. That is the bottom line and that is how I plan to act.
thanks, Ilija, but frankly i don't see my questions being answered in your post.
fortunately i read a lot of backlog since Feb 6, and especially one post (http://www.activecollab.com/forums/topic/53/) seemed to fit exactly:
Ilija Studen(@topic53):
Currently the plan is to have commit permissions limited to small group of developers. Everyone have their own idea of project management and collaboration and with public commit permissions activeCollab would be crowded with features that are rarely used.
Thanks for the understanding.
that seems to (kind of) answer my second question. if you disagree, please say so, and tell me what your idea of an "opensource project" is. but as an afterthought, and coming back to the first question:
1. do you _prefer_ to develop aC alone ? is there a "small group of developers" ? or is it just you ?
2. A new question: Where are the links named "Development" and "Contribute" in the header ? Are they temporarily or permanently missing ? Is this in any way related to this discussion ?
Thank you very much in advance, Ilija, for answering. I don't care if you take your time to answer (i'm quite patient), but please answer my questions. I believe your answers would clarify a lot of ambiguity flying around lately.
I also keep checking this thread. My question was never answered either. Ilja, you have made it quite clear that you want to transition to working on aC full time. My original post is aimed at determining what is needed to make that transition. I am looking for a specific answer to that in terms of time, money, people, etc.
In the broader context this thread i think is also reflecting many people's wishes. 1) to see the progress of this project for the communities benefit and 2) for people's work on aC to be contributed back instead of everyone working independently (as was suggested by ubernostrum in comment #12)
Ilja, I think what would be the dream solution to these two suggestions were if you were able to follow through on the comment brought up by viceroy. If you were to work with a small group of developers (which you could lead) then the project could continue even during times such as these when you are too busy to commit a bunch of time to the project. A perfect example would be the time tracking module submitted by the guys from basejumpr. This is a big request by lots of people and is part of the planned roadmap, yet there isn't any type of beta release or anything that's incorporating these type of enhancements. Also, there are lots of little modifications/improvements to the code such as the ones mentioned on the front page post which i'm sure many people have probably already done on their own but instead of allowing people to submit patches, the follow up post aimes to discuss which features are worth doing. I feel that if someone has clean, working code to an issue it is worth including unless it does not follow the aims of the overall project. So, i think this also goes back to viceroys first question. Is there a reason for not having a small group of "core" developers? meaning - is there no one stepping up to be part of the team? do you prefer to develop alone? I would also reiterate that i think you can still make this a profitable deal for you and still have an active development community.
i also want to congratulate the tt-module, forgot to mention it. i haven't tried it successfully yet (probably missed some file), but i read the bulk of the code: it looks like great work, very simple, very efficient.
Hey Viceroy - there isn't really a pim feature here or email on your profile but you seem to be pretty active in the forums - is there another way to contact you?
Thing that I really don't like about this topic is the feeling like I need to explain myself like I'm working against you and plan to bury this project. I know that that is not your intention but still, that feeling remains the same whenever I read this topic.
I've been working on this for more than a year now and don't think that I want to see it fail. That year and a half should be some kind of proof that I want to see activeCollab succeed and the reason why I don't feel like I need to explain anything to anyone. All decisions I make are made to ensure that activeCollab because a great collaboration tool (project mission statement is "High quality collaboration tool"). That means different things to different people and there is no way to make everyone happy.
So, here is what I think that is for the best of this project at the moment (I reserve the right to change my mind):
1. activeCollab should be supported with sustainable business model in order to ensure that we'll be here for our users even 5 years from now, that we'll be able to support it and to ensure future development. This is crucial for all businesses, small or large. Home users and non-for-profit organizations will benefit from this too, but there is really no big risk unless you put your business on the line. That is why businesses are in focus - they risk the most when using any peace of software. Anyone who has ever been running one knows this.
2. Core development team should be able to go to dinner together when they want. This is a nice way to say that core developers should work for one company or at least live at one city/country.
3. Users should be able to extend functionality of the system without the risk of breaking anything. This requires good documentation and good support.
4. Building strong user community is extremly important. Contributions will be welcome, but project should not rely completely on community to provide development and support in order to provide low risk solution for users.
5. Open source is not the goal by itself. Its just a method for archiving some higher goals (you know, High quality collaboration tool and stuff like that).
That's what I have to say. If you disagree you still have options, but please think hard before making any decisions. Developing, maintaining and supporting this type of project requires a lot of resources (time, knowledge, energy...) and if you plan to fork the project and start your own make sure that you are persistent enough to support it.
At this point I'm investing a lot of time in making sure that activeCollab stays around and to provide best service to users (feature rich product with great support and constant development). And this topic doesn't help ;)
1st, i can understand how this thread my feel threatening so my appologies. my initial post was actually aimed at identifying resources you want and then figuring out how to get them for you.
2nd, based on your points, #2 is the only one that i think conflicts with some people and given today's working environment i don't feel it is extremely necessary.
3rd, while this discussion seems quite interesting/important to other users (thus it would be useful to keep the progress in the open), I'm curious if there would be some other way of discussing these items with you in a more direct/real-time way. I am not sure how quickly you respond to email, but maybe an IM or IRC chat?
#2 is there because I think that for successful software development team needs to work in one office space, at least for the first time. We'll see how this problem will actually be taken care of.
If you wish to ask more direct questions you can send email to ilija.studen@gmail.com. No IM, please...
Topic is locked
If you have something important to say about the issues discussed in this post please write at hi@a51dev.com.
What does outside contribution necessarily have to do with open source? This seems to be a common misconception about OSS. Lots of OSS projects do allow outside contributions, but not all, and it's certainly not a requirement for something to be considered "open source".
As far as I can tell you want to fork either because A) you want to contribute code but can't, or B) you want someone to work on aC full time but Ilija can't. I fail to see how forking will solve either of these problems or, indeed, how it will do more good than harm to either branch in the long run.
There are lots of good reasons to fork OSS projects, but nothing discussed here qualifies, IMO. A few UI issues notwithstanding, aC is coming along nicely and is shaping up to be a widely-adopted application. If you're only problem is development speed I suggest you use Debian for a while to find out what long release cycles are really like.