[ jEdit-devel ] save jedit

[Jarek C. <jar...@po...>]

Hi jEdit Admins

Jedit is a great editor. I found it a complete solution, needing almost 
nothing more. But it still requires some administering and updating, 
since left without care it will in time stop being used, maintained and 
finally probably even become useless. Sometimes I get the impression 
that the project is unmanaged and I would like to revive it and 
encourage you to do the same.

We are all volunteers, but it doesn't mean we don't have duties and 
responsibilities regarding the project. Implicitly we take resonsibility 
for all the commits we make and we should fix all the bugs we introduce. 
So every volunteer has some responsibilites which he should keep to be 
fair with the rest. New volunteers have few duties. Duties arise in time 
and finally project admins are guys who have more duties than beginning 
contributors. And that's why I ask for your help and taking 
responsibility for some tasks that are needed to keep jedit as good as 
it is now.

Although project has currently 6 admins and is quite mature - it's out 
of resources. I heard from almost every one of the admins that work is 
required on some things. Most of you are so busy that can't contribute 
this work directly. So it's time to think seriously about getting new 
resources. It would be nice if you could contribute this little time you 
have to gain and take care of new developers. Here are the things I 
consider important to get new resources:

cleaning of patches trackers and fair reaction to all new entries
a decent and up-to-date webpage without broken links
project documentation: who is who, what are the privileges and duties, 
bug report directions
good communication area instead of current forum
more engagement in working on reported bugs
(a better bug tracker supporting effective searching and voting)

I think everyone involved in the project should contribute its time not 
only to enhancements, but maintaining tasks also. It regards future 
developers also. As maintaining tasks I classify:

bug fixing
working on patches tracker
maintaining internet services
maintaining all kinds of documentation
helping new potential developers and generally others

Considering the amount of bugs left in current code (including plugins) 
by developers who are no longer active, initially much work must be put 
especially in bug fixing. I think at least 50% of time should be devoted 
by everyone to maintaing tasks. When the trackers are cleared and the 
resources are enough, this ratio could be lowered.

I wrote this post because I have a great hunger of action and many ideas 
in the area of project management. But I need support of all the admins, 
more precisely: all the active admins. I am not the admin but I 
volunteer to take part in administration and maintaining. I cannot 
contribute much time, but will try to fullfil the duties. It's also 
amusing that I, being a fresh developer, act like a project admin, but I 
will gladly bow back once the project manager takes care of the issues I 
presented.

Regards
Jarek