aC forum: What would it take? http://www.activecollab.com/forums/topic/1360/ Recent posts on topic: What would it take? en-us Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:12:04 CET http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6955/#post6955 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6955/#post6955 Post #32 by Ryan Cross Ryan Cross Glad to see these announcements made it to the front page. I'll be interested to see the reaction from the broader community. Good luck!

]]> Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:31:23 CET http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6873/#post6873 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6873/#post6873 Post #31 by Ilija Studen Ilija Studen When we are mentioning OpenDarwin - have you noticed that it's a dead project? Has been for past few months if I remember correctly. More on their homepage.

To clear the confusion and keep the energy drain that this type of discussion produces as low as possible here are some facts:

1. Old roadmap is dropped. There will be no 0.7.5 or any other major version in 0.x branch (at least I will not make it but if someone wants to pick up 0.x branch than it's not a problem). Next major release is activeCollab 1.0 and it is scheduled for summer 2007. Code in 1.0 branch is not compatible with 0.x code so parallel development is not possible.
2. New code is PHP4 compatible and does not require InnoDB, GD or PDO. There are also some additions to the framework that make serving AJAX and API calls way easier. Support for plugins is also in place.
3. Improved interface will feature better navigation and page organization, a lot of AJAX calls and new widgets to improve user experience and make things more usable.
4. To keep the development process focused as possible there will be no public beta versions. All beta testing will be done in hosted environment (to roll out change and fixes more easily). All details about beta testing will be posted when we get in that stage.
5. activeCollab 1.0 and future core development will be developed by company that I started and community will be able to contribute by developing plugins.

This decisions are made to ensure that by the end of the year we have a product that is easy to use and extend without the risk that enhancements will break the system, that runs nicely out of box and most importunately to support it properly so it does not make a risk for businesses to use it (most open source and freeware products are high risk for business use).

Reason why I like developing things alone or with small group of people is because things are easier that way. While I was developing 0.7.5 I was highly unsatisfied with the product - complex, large with insane system requirements. So I deleted it and started fresh (not from scratch, just without all those layers of complexity that was added to the system without any good reason). That would be impossible if there was many contributors to the project.

Cathedral? Yes, at least until 1.0 is released.

]]> Sat, 24 Feb 2007 10:16:20 CET http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6863/#post6863 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6863/#post6863 Post #30 by Ryan Cross Ryan Cross Hey Ilja,

something else that might help explain my points a bit are the various examples that I keep reading about in the forums. Below are just some examples of things that people are anxious to see in aC, and have resorted to coding themselves. If their changes were able to be submitted, reviewed, and contributed back to the code base, then everyone could benefit from one persons changes and we wouldn't be waiting for you to recode the same feature.

-Commenting on tasks ( http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6854/#post6854 )
-Writeboards/Wiki ( http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6701/#post6701 )
-Branding/Logo ( http://www.activecollab.com/forums/topic/185/ )
-Filter Tasks By Person ( http://www.activecollab.com/forums/topic/1303/ )
-Reporting/Full Activity list ( http://www.activecollab.com/forums/topic/1425/ )
-DashBoard Milestones/Calendaring ( http://www.activecollab.com/forums/topic/406/ )

yes, i'm aware that most of these are "hacks" but i'm sure better code would be produced if there was that option

]]> Sat, 24 Feb 2007 05:27:18 CET http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6860/#post6860 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6860/#post6860 Post #29 by Ryan Cross Ryan Cross Didn't see your post vicroy - but just wanted to say i completely agree with it. here! here! =)

]]> Sat, 24 Feb 2007 04:38:40 CET http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6859/#post6859 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6859/#post6859 Post #28 by Ryan Cross Ryan Cross Hey Ilja,

Just a few comments.

1) I just wanted to point out that there is also OpenDarwin - which is the community side of OSX
2) I also understand your point of having a commercial company producing 'end user" products instead of a community of programmers scratching their own itches. I think the fact that there is money backing those "end user" products is a big difference here (unless you plan on starting to sell aC at some later point which i think i have read you don't). Also, I think its good to realize that even though it is a closed process it is still supported by a team of people, not just one person, and in reality its a group of small teams.
3) I also can completely take to heart your idea that the approach should match the goals of the project, and maybe that's where I'm having frustrations with this project.
4) Trying to focus just on that article, I pointed it out because as you mentioned not everyone has read it. I actually hadn't read the whole thing until I posted about it. I was surprised how easy to read and short it was. Also, I wasn't trying to suggest that this article would "solve" any of those issues but I think it provides some good insight into both open source projects, and projects as a whole. Another really good resource that CaTB references is "The Mythical Man-Month" by Fred Brooks. (You have probably heard of it too)

Related to your last point about matching approaches with goals, I would think that since aC is aimed at companies (or company-type groups) I would think a more collaborative approach would be useful. Every group has their own quirk that they will want to customize for, but there are also a lot of things that many people would like to use. Allowing the community to submit patches (and having more than one person that is able to make decisions about them) seems like a desirable approach compared to an "end user" product where there is not much customizing expected. Consider the difference between an iPod and FreeBSD (or OSX) in terms of customization.

@vicroy - didn't change my mind, just got busy. (perhaps another example of needing more people)

]]> Sat, 24 Feb 2007 04:36:59 CET http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6851/#post6851 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6851/#post6851 Post #27 by viceroy321 viceroy321
Ilija:

Everything depends on what the problem is and how you look at it. [...]
...everything depends of your perspective.

There isn't a single statement I could agree more with.

But from my perspective if anything here is MacOSX, then it's 37signals:
Their development process is closed, decisions are made by a small group of people, it comes with a price tag and so on, but millions of web users simply DON'T CARE about that.

The point is, your audience is different from that of 37S. At least thats what I believe. Your audience is conscious of both security/data ownership and customisation. If they weren't, they would go to 37S's service. Ok, there may be a few people who want basecamp, but don't want to pay for it...... or do you think that is actually the majority ?

]]> Fri, 23 Feb 2007 17:10:23 CET http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6846/#post6846 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6846/#post6846 Post #26 by Ilija Studen Ilija Studen I know about the CatB though I never read it completely. Here is what I think about CatB (nothing more):

Its just one of many talks about software development. It is pretty influential in open source community, but there are actually programmers all around the world that haven't heard of it and they still write code (meaning - its not essential if you want to be a programmer).

Everything depends on what the problem is and how you look at it. For instance, take a look at BSD project. Cool stuff, solid, UNIX platform developed by many passionate programmers from all over the globe. Even this site runs on a FreeBSD powered server and its great. Bazaar approach rocks!

But then, how many people do you know that use any flavor of BSD for everyday tasks such as sending emails to their mom, managing holiday photos or producing a new logo for a company in some vector tool? None, one, two? More? Hm, I know two persons ;)

Now, take a look at something that one company with dedicated developers and a lot of invested resources can do from something like BSD. Yeah, development process is closed, decisions are made by a small group of people, it comes with a price tag and so on, but millions of desktop users simply DON'T CARE about that. From their perspective cathedral approach rocks (though they most probably never heard of it and do not know what it means).

Whole point of this post is that everything depends of your perspective. There is no silver bullet, there is no ultimate solution to bugs in software and there is no "the one and the only" way how you can develop software. You have a problem that you want to solve with your software, you have defined your target audience and now the question is how to approach the development with resources at hand. No 1997 essay will give you an answer to that question though it might help.

]]> Fri, 23 Feb 2007 10:23:51 CET http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6835/#post6835 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6835/#post6835 Post #25 by viceroy321 viceroy321 here is the html version (http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/) and the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar).

@ryan: you wanted to contact me? changed your mind ?

]]> Fri, 23 Feb 2007 02:27:31 CET http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6834/#post6834 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6834/#post6834 Post #24 by Ryan Cross Ryan Cross Hey Ilja,

have you read "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"? here is a link to a pdf of the article http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/cathedralbazaar/cathedral-bazaar.pdf

You can also read up on it at wikipedia and some other places through google. Its a bit of an old article, but its pretty easy to read and I think it really explains alot of the points that are trying to be expressed here. I hope you read it and would appreciate hearing your comments on it.

]]> Fri, 23 Feb 2007 01:25:52 CET http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6620/#post6620 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/6620/#post6620 Post #23 by Ryan Cross Ryan Cross The point is that a small group of developers can still provide a clear vision and additionally overcome the issue of being limited by a single developer's time commitments. I don't think anyone here is suggesting a free-for-all, they are simply trying to give aC the resources to keep moving forward instead of being slowed to a stand-still (as is currently the situation and will inevitably come again).

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