Re: [Opensync-devel] Fixing the OpenSync core development BUS factor

[Paul E. <blu...@bl...>]

On Mon, 19 Oct 2009, Daniel Gollub wrote:
> So how should we solve the problem?
> Should i declare OpenSync as dead? 

If you ask me I don't think so. OpenSync still has too much promise and there 
has been too much work put into it already to just let it go. (Then again I am 
the one keeping a handheld environment alive that is still using Qt2 and is 
now over 7 years old (!) - so perhaps I am not the best person to ask :) 
Still, my statement stands.

> Or should i stop mainting the project and hand it over to someone else? 

Well that depends on someone being willing and able to step forward and do it. 
Myself, I'm not unwilling per se, but I don't feel sufficiently armed with the 
knowledge yet to fix many of the bugs that are open, and without that I 
wouldn't feel confident in being the maintainer. In any case I think the title 
is less important than people actually doing the work that needs to be done, 
whoever those people might be :)

> I want to suggest now that we _all_ should try something new:
> 
> We look for volunteers who are interested in becoming OpenSync core
> contributors and assign special components of the core to them.

The trend I have observed in open source projects is that most contributors 
are either driven by commercial needs (rare) or they are students with lots of 
spare time and enthusiasm. Actually I don't fall into either of these 
categories; I seem to have been able to preserve a lot of my spare time and 
enthusiasm even though I am out at work (perhaps because my daily work is not 
as stimulating as some of the open source projects that I get to work on); 
however I still think the latter group (students) is where we will find new 
recruits.

I think broadly though (and this is just restating what we have already been 
discussing) we just need to lower the barrier to entry for new people to get 
involved. Also I think that any project also has to work reasonably well (at 
least some part of it) for people to be enthusiastic about working on it - if 
it just seems like a bucket of bolts they may decide it's not worth their time 
or feel that they're not confident enough in their abilities to take it on.

> My role will be just kind of a mentor, and i just try to be available for
> question as much as possible and will do only developing and debugging if
> there is no pending questions from the other core developers.

That sounds great. If you can try to pass on some of your knowledge then 
hopefully the rest of us will be able to take some of the burden of assisting 
users and other developers. I guess if you will be in a position to answer 
people's questions as much as possible then you may need to consider how you 
can set a balance between this and your personal commitments. But that is a 
question for you of course :)

I'm not quite sure how to decide which areas I would work on in the core; as 
you say there is great temptation to take on the areas that are most important 
to me as a plugin developer. I agree though that that will ultimately not 
solve anything.

I have some hesitation in doing this, but perhaps if I can take these two 
items for now:

>  - Synchronization Engine (workflow of the Synchronization: connect,
>    get_changes, ...)
>    * documentation
>    * cleanup
>    * maintenance
>    * bugfixing
>    * profiling
>  - Format Conversion (abstract logic to convert formats, e.g. conversion
>    pathes, ...)
>    * review of the conversion path building process
>    * profiling
>    * documentation

I don't know if we have much time for profiling at the moment :) Bugfixes and 
understanding & documenting the process are a lot more important right now. I 
am still also ready to do fixes and completion of the API documentation in any 
of the areas required, but what I am usually lacking there is understanding 
about how some of the functions should work.

Cheers,
Paul