RE: [Nms-cgi-devel] nms project - moving forward

[Wizard <wi...@ne...>]

Ok, let me know if this is acceptable:

First, I have just downloaded wwwboard, and will have a look. I'll be busy
for the short-term with a few other projects, so I don't know how much I'll
get done, but as I proceed, you can expect questions/RFCs to this list.

A few things, partly because SourceForge is presently broken:

1.> It would be nice if anyone has an existing installation that they could
.tar.gz for me to test against. Nothing too huge, please.

2.> I would like to find out where we are putting this stuff. I couldn't
find a CVS/RCS reference on the web site, but I'm assuming that there is one
from the $Id tags. Some info please.

3.> It would be nice if someone could compile all of the Support requests
for WWWBoard into a list. SourceForge's Search system is presently broken
and I'm not subscribed to the list, so if you already have the list in your
mail,...

4.> We should try to recruit people to run QC tests, as I presently only
have Win2k/Apache, Solaris/Apache, and Linux/Apache available for testing.
Ideally it would be nice to have a nms-testers list, if that's possible.
Perhaps we could recruit some of the ISPs listed on pages for that.

If anyone else is planning any changes, please let me know and I'll hold off
or we can split up the project. From the version that I've downloaded, it
looks as though no one has done anything since last September, though.

Let me know if this is OK with everyone,
Grant M.



> -----Original Message-----
> From: nms...@li...
> [mailto:nms...@li...]On Behalf Of Dave
> Cross
> Sent: Sunday, January 12, 2003 11:36 AM
> To: nms...@li...
> Subject: [Nms-cgi-devel] nms project - moving forward
>
>
> Here are some thoughts about the nms project and its future. Thanks to
> Simon Wilcox for helping me thrash out some of the details. Please read
> all of this message.
>
> The nms project is very successful. And I'm not convinced that we are
> properly geared up for that success. I don't want the project to be
> forced to closed down, so I think we have to change the way we work.
>
> I think we're having two major problems.
>
> * Very small number of people involved in support.
>
>   We have 65 people on the developers mailing list. But I think there
>   have been about five people who have answered a support question in
>   the last two months. I am, of course, eternally grateful to those
>   people for the time they put it, but if we keep relying on a such
>   a small number of people they will come under more and more pressure
>   until they decide they can't be bothered any more and leave the
>   project.
>
>   There are also a small (but growing, I think) number of support emails
>   that just don't get answered. This makes the project look bad. One of
>   the things that is supposed to differentiate between us and Matt Wright
>   is that we have a good support system. For some people that doesn't
>   seem to be true currently.
>
>   There are enough of us that the support effort doesn't need to be very
>   onerous for a small number of people. If we spread it out, each of us
>   would only need to deal with a very small number of emails.
>
> * Very little development going on
>
>   Nick Cleaton is doing great work on FormMail and TFMail, but they
>   seem to be the only programs that are moving forward. Once again I
>   have to wonder why we have 65 people on the development list if most
>   of them have no interest in doing any development.
>
>   A few weeks ago, I posted several emails to the development list in
>   one afternoon. They were all ideas for improvements that came from
>   support requests. I posted them to the devel list hoping for a bit
>   of discussion about the suggestions followed by someone volunteering
>   to take the project on. All of these emails were completely ignored.
>
>   Simon also posted a number of emails to the devel list during
>   December. This were also ignored (by me too, I'm sorry to admit).
>
>   As with support, if people make suggestions for improvements to our
>   scripts and they are just ignored, then it makes us look bad.
>
>
> Ok. So those are the problems. Here are some suggestions for solutions.
>
> I need to delegate responsibility for the development and support for the
> scripts. Already Nick pretty much controls FormMail and TFMail, but we
> need to take that further.
>
> I suggest that Nick gets a group of about four or five volunteers to help
> him develop and support FormMail and TFMail. This group will be
> responsible for handling all support email on these scripts and for making
> new releases available.
>
> We'll also create smaller groups that do the same for the other scripts.
> We'll probably need separate groups for wwwboard, search and guestbook as
> (after formmail) they are the most commonly used. The other scripts can
> probably all be dealt with by a single group.
>
> These groups will also be responsible within themselves for assign rotas
> of people who will deal with support issues. These will designate a
> "first line support" person. This person will be able to call on other
> people within the group to help them solve problems that they can't work
> out on their own.
>
> I also intend to make the developers mailing list closed. So that only
> people who are in one of these support groups will be subscribed to the
> list.
>
> In order to foster more of a feeling of responsibility towards the
> scripts I'd like to introduce a "team bios" page on the web page so that
> people can see who's who on the project.
>
> And speaking of the web site, it needs an overhaul so I'd like to create
> another group that is responsible for that. Amongst the things I'd like
> them to look at are:
>
> * Team bios page
>
> * Script documentation on the web site
>   (even better if it's auto-generated from the README files as a
>   script is released).
>
> * Script demos on the web site
>
> * More FAQs
>   Perhaps even some kind of "knowledge base" or wiki.
>
> * Announcements
>   I'd like to encourage people to sign up to a new announcements list
>   when they download our scripts. They will then get automatic emails
>   when a new version is released. This announcements should also be
>   listed on the web site.
>
> * Articles
>   Useful articles for CGI beginners. Things like "idiots guide to
>   debugging a CGI script".
>
> Well, that's about all for now. Please let mw know what you think.
>
> I really think that if we don't do something soon, then the project is
> in danger of being overwhelmed.
>
> Thanks for listening,
>
> Dave...
>
> --
>   Drugs are just bad m'kay
>
>
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