58
tripmon
Re: What's going on with XOOPS
  • 2005/4/27 23:30

  • tripmon

  • Module Developer

  • Posts: 462

  • Since: 2004/2/28


Quote:
So... as I understand your point, when someone posts something on e.g. the French community website that could be of interest to other people, he/she should also post it in the French "Geography" forum here on xoops.org? Then a French community representative will see it and translate it.


I am suggesting that ALL potential international news items be submitted to a single forum which does not yet exist.

Let's name the forum XOOPS International News for discussion..

This 'Xoops International News' forum will be composed of:

1) Category A
a)All Local Support Sites (or geographies) will be represented with a single forum which allows native language navigation & posts and provides an rss feed.

2) Category B
a)A forum for each newsletter topic... only ENGLISH posts approved AND translated by 'Local Support Representatives' or by approved .org posters will EVER appear here.
i)WOX
ii)Module Dev News
iii)Core Developments
iv)Whatever the topics need be.

Now, All *potential* international news items are posted to Category A (in 'Xoops International News' forum) directly from the 'Local Support Sites' who can now use the RSS from their own 'Xoops International News->my geography Forum' to populate a XOOPS International News block on their 'Local Support Site' (it will already be in their native lang).

Submitters of international news can now submit their *international news in any language. The SAME single post (with no admin intervention) would provide data on the 'Local Support Sites' while that same post would be translated by the 'Local Support Representative' (if appropriate) and placed in the appropriate Category B forum.

Newsletter creators have each (Category B) forum available so it should be really quick and easy to create the newsletters.

The responsibilty for translating important items is a function of the 'Local Support Representative' and not the organization.

The responsibilty for inputting important items is a function of the 'Local Community' and not the 'Local Support Representative'.

As a long term solution I think this would provide a better, and more unified platform for this type of 'information aggregation'.

I am proposing this framework as a model because it can be applied to any type of language barrier communication. By creating a single 'lead' for each geography, that lead becomes responsible for speaking on his/her geography's behalf. They don't necessarily need strong tech skills.

This model allows the 'lead' (who obviously must have the necessary language skills) to communicate with their users/developers, and bring that information to the organization in a format(language) agreed upon.

The easier we make it for that lead to digest the information within their geography, the more valuable a resource that 'lead' will become to the organization. This is why I'm suggesting a multi-lang approach.

Wether we're talking about core roadmaps, or module news, this framework sandboxes each geography and creates a group of 'leads' who can then interact in a common language.

While this will not immediately fix anything, it may provide a more unified community, and better facilitate bi-directional communication and the flow of ideas.

59
davidl2
Re: Whats going on with XOOPS
  • 2005/4/27 23:38

  • davidl2

  • XOOPS is my life!

  • Posts: 4843

  • Since: 2003/5/26


I'm afraid I do agree with a lot of what you are saying Liquid...

60
ackbarr
Re: What's going on with XOOPS

Quote:

wfsection wrote:
This thread does not in one bit surprise me at all.

For the last few months I have sat and watched this unfold into the fiasco that it now is. There are two sets of people here at Xoops, the in crowd and the ones on the outside looking in.

Perhaps, because I am one of the "in-crowd" you refer to, I don't see the same issues you do. I know that each and every person working on the core team, does so out of love and respect for this community, not for direct personal gain.
Quote:

The current core members to not care for anyone else but themselves when it comes to the development of Xoops. Sure, you might actually start listening to people but normally it takes a sledgehammer to hit before the information sinks in.

I personally take offense at this statement. Again, every one of the current core team members cares very strongly for the future of xoops. But this is not an us vs. them argument. Every single person on these forums is a member of the XOOPS community. In nearly every open-source project, the fastest way to implement change jump in with both feet. Submit a patch, help test outstanding patches that are being considered for the core, help support, document, etc. Most of your complaints can be solved by publishing a development roadmap. I am assured by other team members that this is being done as we speak.
Quote:

The Japanese community have been trying to get your attention over matters that they regarded high on the list for the development of XOOPS only to be ignored until someone finally took noticed and realised that there was a massive hole in Xoops, and even then you lot reluctantly took notice. This is not the first time that this has happened and you only need to venture through these and other forums for that evidence.

I would like for you to produce examples of attempted communication of security issues that were ignored. When pressed to submit proper security advisories these types of responses were given:

Quote:

Herko.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
I'm too busy to teach "What is the security" to short skilled programmer.

My Name is GIJOE.

Do you still insist this site is secure?

If Protector is installed correctly, I can't crack regardless of the version of XOOPS.

I thought then, and I still think now that some users were more interested in drawing attention to themselves then fixing the problem. Instead of publicly attacking another member of the community, the proper response would be to:

Submit a patch
Post a bug report
Submit a security advisory

Were any of those steps taken? No. Why not?


Quote:

So why has XOOPS lost so many of the top developers over the last year? Why has so much talent gone from the development of XOOPS and why is nothing being done to prevent this from happening? I could give you a list as long as my arm of the people who have left or are extremely unhappy with the current XOOPS team and the way that XOOPS is being developed. Why do I know? Because I have personally spoken to many XOOPS module developers regarding this matter and message is very clear.

I can't speak for "many of the top developers", but I imagine they left because of arguments like this one. It does nothing to improve XOOPS or the XOOPS community.

Quote:

I think it is about time that people on these forums who rather adhere to arse licking and just agreeing for the sake of agreeing took a few steps back and realised that even though the number of XOOPS users grow, the amount of modules, themes and work to the core is actually going down and there are not the number of raw new talent coming in to take over the place of lost talent.

You do have a point here. We as a community need to do a better job at getting new development talent interested in working on XOOPS. A question that should be asked of all those leaving is why?

Quote:

The sad fact is this, the core doesn't bring people to Xoops, its the modules and themes that people use in a daily context that does. I have said this before and I will say this again, the current thinking of the core is to throw out as much as possible to the outside developers (Hacks, modules, themes etc) and hope that these people carry on the development of what I regard as key core development area's and not down to others. You just have to look at the issues going on now to understand how fucking stupid this current thinking is by the core. The more key development that is sustained by the core thus means that important areas stay up to date, secure and hopefully written to the XOOPS OO standard. This offloading of work WILL backfire in the long run.

No, I disagree with your assessment. The idea was to have a group of people that concentrate on adding features to the core (that are utilized by modules / themes) and other groups of people that concentrated on utilizing these new features in their applications. Again I don't see this as an us vs. them situation. We are all working to improve XOOPS.

Quote:

Apparently the next version of XOOPS totally disregards module developers by the fact that all modules (from what I have read) will be rendered useless due to the new way that modules are dealt with. So what does this mean to everyone? Well with the lack of current module developers around today, who is going to take over the role of converting all the modules that wont work, don't have developers currently working on them and those modules that where originally core modules? Will the core team do this, oh I forgot, they couldn’t be pissed assed actually doing work on them any more. Hell, no wonder Mambo is running riot at the moment with the awards that it’s winning just now.

What are you basing this on? Because we have decided that instead of continuing to tack features on that a fresh look was needed? You make it sound like we don't want to do any work, so here you go developers, you can do it for us. That viewpoint can't be further from the truth. How many modules has Mithrandir released in the last 12 months? I've personally released 3 major versions of xhelp with another one on the way. We all realize that modules and themes will be what draws users in, but to draw module developers and theme developers in, additional features need to be added to the core. Again, this isn't us vs. them.
Quote:

Someone mentioned a fork in this thread; you really don't have a clue how close that actually happened. I can tell you now that many XOOPS module developers (Yes ones that are here right now) actually started putting this plan into action and where going to fork Xoops. Yes, we have a name for this new CMS, we have the development structure in place and we have many Module, theme developers to do the job and are unwilling to put any more time into XOOPS development.

As I said in an earlier response, forks happen daily in the Open Source world. And they usually happen when two people have legitimate differences of opinion. Why do you think there are 15-20 different MAJOR cms's for the PHP programming language alone? Maybe I'm just oblivious, but I am actually suprised at the anger (or maybe frustration) I see in your post. Here I've been happily working away at XOOPS and all your frustration was completely missed.

Quote:

We then decided to wait until the new version came out before we would decide which way to continue. You have to ask yourself this question, WHY??? Ask yourself that question please. Why we developers have decided to do this? Because, we are extremely unhappy with what is going on in Xoops, both with (some) members of the current core and the direction of XOOPS it self.

No 1 group of people dictate XOOPS "policy." I get personally very upset when I read posts like this, because it implies that we on the core team are sitting there with a big rubber stamp that says "No" on it. You know how I got to be on the core team. Because I was willing to help when I saw a need, not just complain about it. It wasn't because I was a member of the "in-crowd." I didn't even know PHP before I started working with XOOPS, but I liked what I saw and learned PHP through working with the XOOPS application.

Quote:

I know I am going to get 'shit' for this post but personally I couldn't care less. I am telling you how it is, the other developers feel but are unwilling to say (except for Phppp) anything in fear of being labelled a traitor to the XOOPS cause.

You are correct, you will get 'shit'. But not because you are a traitor. I'm sorry that you have such animosity toward the "Core Team", but it is not mutual. In fact, XOOPS is large enough that if it doesn't cultivate a more productive community it will wither. Every one of the core team members realizes this and wants to cultivate this community.

Quote:

I left XOOPS because of the crass and bullshit covering the already showing cracks in the XOOPS foundation. Being told how wonderful everything was and how fantastic things are and the self style jubilations and pats on our own back in a job well done, when the people who matter where saying, look something is wrong here and were just ignored.

I'm sorry, I just don't see it. There have been several times in the last year that I've been very close to walking away. But not because of problems with the core team members, rather getting tired of dealing with rants just like this. All sizzle, no steak.

Quote:

When I was with WF-Projects, we asked if one line could be inserted into a java script function last year. To us it seemed more sensible to add one line to a core function rather than have to write more code that wasn't needed. We where told, 'No'.

These are both unfortunate, but I was not involved in either one of these decisions, nor their discussions either for or against.

Quote:

Well as someone once said, so long and thanks for all the fish!

I'm sorry you feel this way, you will be missed.

61
ackbarr
Re: What's going on with XOOPS

wfsection - and I can pull out Bunny who has dealt with Kazu several times and can explain why he was kicked from the XOOPS team shortly before XOOPS 2. You know what though, its all he-said-she-said BS anyway.

62
smdcom
Re: What's going on with XOOPS

Quote:

Mithrandir wrote:
Regarding moving all the local sites to xoops.org, I'm not sure that is what the local sites want (correct me if I'm wrong).


Yes. you're right. If we move to xoops.org what is the purpose of our local sites then. but there must be a connection between local site representative and xoops.org staff. or create another users group for local site representative in this site. so, we can know each other. people will know who is the representative for each of the local site. this is not necessary, but we should find ways so that communication between xoops.org & local site as good as it can be.

63
davidl2
Re: What's going on with XOOPS
  • 2005/4/28 1:29

  • davidl2

  • XOOPS is my life!

  • Posts: 4843

  • Since: 2003/5/26


Which sounds like a good compromise... so long as the chosen representative was someone everyone was happy with.

64
ayumi
Re: What's going on with XOOPS
  • 2005/4/28 4:05

  • ayumi

  • Just popping in

  • Posts: 18

  • Since: 2003/4/24


wfsection and LazyBadger, Thank you for your comments.
I think you guys show us the point of this matter. Yes, we can report security bugs to the core team. But I heard some developer felt difficulties to reflect the bug fix to the core releases speedy.
It may be difference of way of thinking. There are many different needs toward one XOOPS. I think it is inevitable to have a new fork.

At this time, there are no detailed announcements of the new XOOPS fork at http://www.xoopscube.jp.
The 4th XOOPS Conference will be held on Saturday 21st of May in Tokyo.
I expect there would be announcements of new XOOPS fork’s features, concepts and roadmap at the conference. A report of the 3rd XOOPS Conference is here. If you would like to join the conference, please send PM to me.
I also expect the new XOOPS fork would come with English language files and English support.
Simply, We just have a new choice. Please take it easy and enjoy xooping!

65
kiang
Re: Whats going on with XOOPS
  • 2005/4/28 4:21

  • kiang

  • Not too shy to talk

  • Posts: 126

  • Since: 2002/9/2 1


Quote:

Mithrandir wrote:
2. Not following you entirely. You mean a list of contacts for e.g. the French support site in the event of the webmaster not being available? Isn't that a task for the support site to make their contact points available? On the other hand, I do see the point of having e.g. a "2nd in command" who is not listed as the webmaster of the site, but who the xoops.org staff or other local support site representatives could contact... I don't know, really. I expected some 2-3 people from each support site being involved in this - plus a handful of people to coordinate, write WOX newsletters, picking up information here and there etc.

In Taiwan, there are two or more local community support site. Because webmasters try to limit the posts more and more or they make the site be personal style which full of the information about personal business. So it's sad that there are two community sites for XOOPS in Taiwan. I think the situation may happened in other countries. The contact point I mean just like the guy who could transfer information between local community site and here. Maybe the guy who don't like to stay at the official local community site but would like to let the world know what happened in local area, like me.

Is this project an open source project?? Yes, you don't have to open everything here. But you'll make more and more gaps between us if you try to make more private areas here. Something happened similarly in egroupware. Some developers hated to communicate in private areas and then the fighting happened. There's a result :

http://www.egroupware.org/ConstitutionB

Some developers were sad and left. They now only limit the post privilege but open all information for the whole community. I hope there will be no the same fighting here.

You could try to send the latest news to all webmasters who in charge of the local community site. Using mailing list in sf.net or dev.xoops.org is great. The process could even be automatic sent when the news are submited.

66
m0nty
Re: Whats going on with XOOPS
  • 2005/4/28 6:28

  • m0nty

  • XOOPS is my life!

  • Posts: 3337

  • Since: 2003/10/24


news aside, what i'd like to know now and i'm sure many others is, after all this dscussion and heated posts both highlighting differences and bad feeling between xoops.org and the japanese community.. is there going to be some discussion to sort differences out between each other and allow XOOPS to grow in a way that pleases everybody.. there has to be some compromise somewhere, and i'm pretty sure nobody wants to fork unless they feel they have to? history aside and differences, can we at least start over and move forward in a positive manner.

67
Mithrandir
Re: Whats going on with XOOPS

Quote:
is there going to be some discussion to sort differences out between each other and allow XOOPS to grow in a way that pleases everybody

Anybody and everybody are welcome to join in the discussion.

Just like anybody and everybody are encouraged to help out with the development by stepping up and taking the lead on matters instead of staying on the sideline, complaining.

Every single person in the core team has seen one or more things that weren't as they should be and done something to make it better

Why Catzwolf left, I don't know. He told us that it was because of a new job and a fragile health. I thought higher of him than what you describe, Liquid.

I would also like to take this opportunity to bury a myth: We are doing a LOT to keep module compatibility with any new core version. Some XOOPS 1.3 compatibility will be lost in the future when it comes to modules and themes, but the XooSphere architecture will NOT make current modules useless (who on Earth has led you to believe that?).

The Core team should do more, develop more things in the core and manage more ... while developers who give up or find something they like better elsewhere are martyrs who fought against the "evil empire". I don't get that. By placing more and more functionality in modules, it will be easier for "outsiders" to develop something better without even having to involve the core development. Isn't that better than "fighting the evil empire"? Of course we cannot just supply a platform and say "here it is - now it's your responsibility to make it useful for the end-users". Of course we will have to steer development of relevant modules so we can market XOOPS as a complete system and not just a development platform. I will do what I can to encourage this development, but it is not like I can just say to someone "OK, we need this module and you are going to buid it. It needs to be like this. Get to work" - I can only say what is needed and hope for someone to step up to the task. It HAS to be a voluntary effort by developers, who want to contribute to XOOPS.

@tripmon:
I still don't understand the need for double-posting local news. This information is already being posted on the local sites, so why not let the local site representatives take it from there and translate it for others to use? Why draw local site users to xoops.org just for re-posting what they have already posted on the local site?

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