XOOPS: Richard Griffith to lead XOOPS Core Team

Posted by: XoopsCouncilOn 2013/9/10 21:40:00 22095 reads
The XOOPS Council is very pleased to announce that Richard Griffith (geekwright) has accepted the position of Team Leader for the XOOPS Core Team. As indicated on our Team Descriptions, the key areas for Richard and the Core Team are:

- Perform a thorough review of the security of the code base as a primary priority.
- Produce Development Road map in-line with community expectations and needs.
- Innovate and maintain core software to current technical and security standards.
- Resolve legitimate bugs submitted in the tracker.
- Enlist the best and brightest open source software developers through communication, innovation and integrity.
- Assist in the training and development of emerging developers for the XOOPS Project.
- Assist in preparation of documentation concerning the core, in partnership with the Documentation group.

Richard has been involved in XOOPS for over two years now. In May 2011 he became the "Innovator of the Month" for his work on "gwreports"

Since then he released several more modules:

FBComment
SpeachSearch
Gwiki

He already has made several important contributions to XOOPS Core:

- he incorporated Doctrine DB Abstraction Layer into XOOPS 2.6.0 working together with Redheadedrod. This will make XOOPS database-agnostic, and will enable our users to use any database that is supported by Doctrine.

- helped us to move XOOPS 2.6.0 development to GitHub, and finally

- has updated Trabis' XMF (XOOPS Module Framework) to make migration of XOOPS 2.5.x modules to XOOPS 2.6.0 much easier (more information about it coming soon).

And he is just warming up!

Richard has many plans and ideas for XOOPS 2.6.0, and we can't wait till all of it will become reality! But as he has already proven, he is a man of action, who likes to deliver on his ideas and promises, so we can expect soon a lot of cool things!

We're looking forward to working with Richard, and are welcoming him to XOOPS Council and the XOOPS Community as the new Core Team Leader.

We also would like to thank Trabis for all his work on the XOOPS 2.6.0 Core and his XOOPS Module Framework! He has made tons of important contributions to both, and it is his work and vision than we'll be building upon moving forward, together with all the work that Nicolas did as well, Both of them were the giants of XOOPS Core Development, who have changed and reshaped how XOOPS is looking now:

- Nicolas Andricq and his French Team with their work on XOOPS 2.5.x, and then on XOOPS 2.6.0
- Trabis (Ricardo Costa) with his work on countless modules, the XOOPS Module Framework, and cleaning up and modernizing XOOPS 2.6.0 Core.

We're all extremely thankful to all of them for all their contributions, and we hope that once their lives become less hectic, they'll be contributing again to XOOPS.

There are several new announcements coming up related to XOOPS 2.6.0, and we can't wait to share them with you! The remainder of 2013 will be a very exciting time for XOOPS, and 2014 is clearly the year of XOOPS' comeback! We hope that all of you will join us on this exciting journey and that you will contribute to making XOOPS the best it can be!

Viva XOOPS!

XOOPS Council
Sept. 10, 2013

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Hi, I'm Richard Griffith and here is a brief history of me.

I've lived in lots of places in the USA, and have landed recently in a small town in Iowa, where the challenges of a more than a century old house became a temporary full time job. Spoiling my granddaughter also keeps me busy.

I studied Computer Science in college, and spent more than 2 decades inside a Fortune 100 company as a contractor and consultant. Over the years I have programmed everything from handhelds to mainframes, using whatever languages were needed, and held roles and responsibilities ranging through project development, change management, database administration and many others. My favorite role was always the programmer analyst; there I got to identify the problem, define how software could help and then build a solution.

While there were lots of valuable lessons learned in that environment, it was obvious that real growth and innovation occurs in smaller, more agile environments. Sifting out the most valuable lessons from the large conservative corporation approaches and deploying that value as an asset in smaller organizations became my focus.

I was very attracted to XOOPS when I was first introduced to it many years ago. The module structure really appealed to my view of how things should work. Over time, I've offered up many solutions based on XOOPS or some of its derivatives. While I continued my endeavors for the benefit of existing clients, I was eagerly awaiting some much needed modernization. Conversations with the XOOPS evangelist you know as Mamba led me to realize I was not alone in wanting a powerful, modern web application platform based on the XOOPS model. I agreed to a more direct involvement, and one thing led to another. I was scared, humbled and honored as we entered into the discussions that lead us to this point.

I hope that XOOPS can benefit from my experiences in the same way XOOPS has benefited me. Together I think we can create a powerful platform that exceeds our dreams and still retains that character that makes us XOOPS.