[SM-CVS] SF.net SVN: squirrelmail: [12309] trunk/documentation/devel/devel.sgml

[<jer...@us...>]

Revision: 12309
          http://squirrelmail.svn.sourceforge.net/squirrelmail/?rev=12309&view=rev
Author:   jervfors
Date:     2007-03-04 07:08:00 -0800 (Sun, 04 Mar 2007)

Log Message:
-----------
Importing documentation from the wiki. I have edited it to fit the documentation better. I don't know who wrote the original text, which was written at the end of 2001, but parts of it was probably written by Paul Joseph Thompson who became project leader at that time. Due to the nature of the wiki it's hard to tell what's edited since it was first published and who the original author is. Some older versions are preserved by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at <http://web.archive.org/collections/web.html>.

Modified Paths:
--------------
    trunk/documentation/devel/devel.sgml

Modified: trunk/documentation/devel/devel.sgml
===================================================================
--- trunk/documentation/devel/devel.sgml	2007-03-04 12:50:00 UTC (rev 12308)
+++ trunk/documentation/devel/devel.sgml	2007-03-04 15:08:00 UTC (rev 12309)
@@ -193,6 +193,75 @@
         plugins.
 </enum>
 
+<sect1>The community
+<sect2>Our most valuable resource
+<p>
+"If you treat your users as if they're your most valuable resource, they will
+respond by becoming your most valuable resource"
+
+Good projects in both the open source and commercial world succeed because of a
+whole community of people who are involved in the project, not just because of
+the small set of individuals who actually did the tinkering with the code. Open
+source is power! Let's look at an example.
+
+<sect2>A short case study
+<p>
+<it/"Who in the computer world doesn't know what WinAmp is? WinAmp, as far as I
+can tell, is the Windows MP3 player that was at the forefront of the
+intersection between the world of Windows users and the emerging standard of MP3
+for digitally recorded audio. What about WinAmp made it so successful? Was it
+just because the program was the greatest thing in the world?/
+
+<it/No, I think not. In fact, from everything I have ever seen, there are some
+really annoying things about the program. What made it so successful, in my
+opinion, is the community that grew around it./
+
+<it/When I first saw WinAmp, it was on a college campus. My computer only had
+Linux on it, so I did not install WinAmp. However, I noticed that it seemed
+everyone in the dormitory seemed to have WinAmp installed. More than that, they
+really were very big on the program. They loved the skins. They IDENTIFIED with
+it./
+
+<it/What is that? That is community. That is a person feeling that they are no
+longer just a user of the program, but part of the program itself. No, I am not
+talking about some new-age "being one with the program" thing here. I am just
+talking about the difference between feeling as if you are a part of something,
+or just an outsider."/
+
+<sect2>What does this have to do with SquirrelMail?
+<p>
+The community of SquirrelMail itself is worth much more than just the sum of the
+developers. Just like a bright flashlight is dwarfed by the brightness of the
+sun, the SquirrelMail community must shine much brighter than the SquirrelMail
+development team itself. If it doesn't, SquirrelMail will not survive. After
+all, developers are real people. Real people graduate, have kids, get married,
+get busy, or get hit by ice cream trucks. Life goes on. The strength of the
+SquirrelMail community itself guarantees that there will always be life beneath
+the surface as it will continue to feed the strength of the development team
+itself.
+
+<sect2>The SquirrelMail Project Team
+<p>
+The SquirrelMail Project Team isn't just the developers. The change from being
+the SquirrelMail Development Team is to make that point more obvious. There are
+a lot of other peoples helping out too. Here are some examples:
+
+<bf/Translators:/ A good percentage of the SquirrelMail end users don't
+understand English. The SquirrelMail translators work hard to make it so that
+people who use other languages still can use SquirrelMail. Who cares about some
+fancy new feature that a developer implements - if it is only available in
+English, it can not be globally used.
+
+<bf/User support:/ Thank God for our precious user support people. These people
+patiently, repeatedly, respond to peoples comments at the SquirrelMail mailing
+lists. They often answer the same questions over and over, and are very patient
+and consistent with their help. Without these people, where would we be?
+
+So, in short and again, the point is that SquirrelMail is simply a lot more then
+its developers. We should all try to make the SquirrelMail community stronger,
+and the rest of the Project Team is just as important as the developers. We can
+only succeed by the time and effort of the team as a whole.
+
 <sect>General guidelines
 <p>
 This section should provide some generic information.


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