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Hi, xoopsers!
What is it that XOOPS needs to rise above the top? How come all those darn lazy good-for-nothing core team members don't fix things so they go the right way? Why aren't people's opinions being read and used and deployed in the code? Why there's still no good quality in the modules? Why? Why? Why?
So many questions, so many opinions, so little time, so little encouragement to push ahead. Sigh.
Well, if you have the time, let me share with some of you a few remembrances of things past, present and maybe future.
XOOPS is a collective project. This means many people work in it at the same time. Not as many as we'd like, and not in as coordinate a way as we'd like, but nevertheless, progress is being done while you read this. Yes, yes, not as fast as we'd like, but, you know? Sometimes the tone in these threads has a most peculiar effect: it tends to take your spirit away. Do you know why? Because sometimes it seems that no one cares about what kind of time, of effort, of talent you put in: someone's going to whine, to complain, to throw dirt just for the sake of it. Damn!
Call it whatever you like. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and of course they're welcome here (because behind some of these comments there're some scattered pearls). But you can't expect to get more and more and more from someone who's constantly abused verbally as lazy, incompetent, unefficient, myopic, deaf... you get the point. And much less can you expect him or her to do it with a happy heart, a smile on the face, a kind word for everyone.
I'll tell you friends a story. I expect you to excuse the fact that it's about me, but as you'll probably understand, it is my case the one I'm more familiar with. So here it is. Some time ago, Herko approached me with a few good ideas about how to move the community, how to strengthen XOOPS's code, how to instill more life in the whole enchilada. We started chatting a lot. I mean A LOT. And we built a few docs, a few drafts, some graphics, some general ideas on how to build The XOOPS Universe.
After a while, we and some other xoopsers got the core teams defined, and for some reason I ended as leader of the then nonexistant documentation team. The idea was to ask for help, so I asked for help. And again. And again. It wasn't easy, it wasn't quick, it wasn't as successful as we'd all like, but eventually we had a team running. Oh, it was -still is- a good team. As usual, there's a few slackers, a few so-so, a few lurkers. But there's also some very active and very professional and very nice and productive people there. So, the team got to work, we defined a general plan to write documentation and started doing it. Write, write, write. Argue, argue, argue. Write, write, write.
All along, we had all kind of feedback: some complained about the fact that the team was a closed endeavour; some complained about the lack of good docs; some whined about the bureaucracy of the team: after all, they said, how hard can it be to write a document about this or that? Oh, we had tons and tons of comments, mostly complaints about how slowly we moved. A very few xoopsers even did something about it, and the result is some very useful docs. But most of the comments were the kind of comparisons that feed your heart: "Hey, lazy bum! Take a look at how nice documents they have at Mambo | PostNuke | Xaraya | etc. How come you have nothing?" Eventually I had to leave the team aside, but had the most splendid take over help from the present leader, Carnuke. You can read now some of the documents produced by the team in the links at your left. Kudos to you, Richard! (And of course to the rest of the team!)
So what did I do? Well, as a matter of fact, I was learning bit by bit some PHP, so I talked with some ver knowledgeable xoopsers and they kind of taugth me enough to ask a few intelligent questions and advance some things. Among them was Catzwolf, now turned into a different man for reasons that are none of my business but which I certainly respect. I gave him some suggestions and ideas, we also chatted some, and from that came some of his modules: WF-Channel, WF-FAQ... All in all, I learned enough to attempt to build a module of my own. The result was Soapbox.
Afterwards I learned a bit more, so I built, from a different approach, Wordbook. This time I started from the index page: I decided how I wanted it to look, gathering the best from all glossaries I found, and then I wrote the code to feed the page. It was a nice experiment. Third, I wrote a module for a very specific project, and I tried to do it as complete as possible, even though it's not a general use module. However, it includes some niceties so I just put it in the devs site for everyone to take it and dismantle it. It's FilmMaker.
I'm no coder, no IT guy. So you'll understand these modules are full of quirks and are, to say the least, cumbersome. They expect a lot from the database, have convoluted solutions to problems that a good coder finds amusing and in general are slow modules. They also have their share of bugs. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
And guess what? I sure got some very good feedback from many xoopsers... but also the usual comments from some other ones: "Hey? Whay don't you add this or that? Hey, why don't you build this for me? Hey, how come you're so slow to react? Hey, this bug was reported a century ago! Do something!" Ah, the warm feelings!
So, after this context which is may have a familiar ring to you, here's a few answers to a few questions. They are, of course, my answers, so feel free to accept them or not, as you will:
1. Why does XOOPS have modules with not-so-good quality? First, because building a good module is not an easy task. You can ask anywhere. But it's also because building a good quality control team has proven difficult. We talked about this almost two years ago, and guess what? We've got more flak than volunteers, more critiques than people willing to help. Also, since this is an open initiative, everyone is entitleed to write a module, and there's no way anybody can control that. Even I wrote a few modules, as I told you, and if they're under somebody's standards, well, sorry, but my few surviving neurons are already a bit overwhelmed. If you have good ideas, please put them to work. How? Dario García had ideas about WordBook, so he sent me some PMs. After a while, I answered, gave him developer status and now he's released a couple of bugfixes. That's how! Movement is shown by moving, not by shouting. And don't come to me with those "I'm no coder" excuses: only a very few are actually coders, and modules need more than just coders, just as XOOPS needs much more than just coders and just core team members.
2. Why don't the core team members do something about this or that? For instance, about the fact that some developers leave, about the fact that some developers want things done differently, about the fact that other software packages have better features or better marketing or better interfaces. Well, the reasons are pretty much obvious. Core team members have also a life of their own, responsibilities other than XOOPS, families to take care of. But when someone dares to say this in the forums, there's always some schmuck yelling that this implies ass-kissing or worse. Why? Because a large community must include, as a rule, all kinds of people, the good as well as the obnoxious. So we have our share of baddies, of name-calling, insulting, provoking, yelling, whining and disturbing xoopsers. So be it. But it's not always easy nor always a light load to carry. And people do deserve to be praised.
I feels an immense amount of respect for people like Herko, Mithrandir, Ackbarr, Skalpa, Marcan, Onokazu, GIJoe, Solo, Predator, Bunny... The list is long though not as long as we'd need. But all these people are giving XOOPS time, talent and willingness, trying to build a better and safer product and a healthy and positive community. Thanks to them we have XOOPS for now and for the future. I'm very happy to see there's a good deal of new and not-so-new xoopsers that are also beginning to replace words with work, and thanks to them XOOPS has a renewed spirit aiming for some overlooked issues: packaging (though we talked a bit also a couple of years back), marketing, customer attention, better profiles...
3. So what is it that XOOPS need to rise over the top? Better coders? A good coder is always welcome, but to be honest, we do have some of the best and finest, and we'd better care for them, because they migh as well be doing something else. Some have gone, and it's a shame, but it's also their choice. Better vision? Maybe we need a better diffusion mechanism, but I assure you the vision shared by the core team leaders and some of the recent contributors is a darned good vision, good enough to take XOOPS to a quality level you have not seen before in projects such as this. Unfortunately, some of this you have to read between the lines, thanks to the noise level in the threads. Better documents? You bet. Now please help us get the writers. Or write yourself part of what we need. [i]Better xoopsers?[i] We do have more than our share of top-quality xoopsers. This is one of the fines communities you can find in the open source world. You don't believe me? Friend, you might as well take a look around!
So what is it? Some of you will think this is stupid or shoddy or plain too simple, but it's my take. What do we need? We need to be aware of the fact that XOOPS will be best if we remember to give more than we demand. Yes, the good old message behind the late president Kennedy's words: what have you done for XOOPS lately? So let's move on! As you very well know, there's plenty to do. Let's do it!
Cheers
