[Erp5-users] Project management style (was: What companies provide Erp5 Technical Support since Nexedi doesn't?)

[bartek]

Hello,

I'm a bit hesitant to post to this thread, since it seems to have
turned into a strange bad-language flame. Still, there may be a point
to it, so maybe we can try to start again.

I know nothing about terms and pricing of Nexedi's commercial support,
so I can't tell. What IMO is worth discussing is - yes, again - Tracy's
post. It indeed seems to still be accurate - there is no community
around ERP5, community support is next to none, community contribution
is next to none (as even Nicolas pointed out while talking about wiki).
This is clear for anyone who takes a look on the mailing list. The key
question is: is Nexedi happy about it, or not? 

Because, maybe it is - perhaps it is fine for them that nobody bothers
them by raising issues, asking questions, lobbying for tickets,
demanding code reviews, discussing, criticizing, doing all sorts of
bazaar-like mess. They can sit quietly in their Boulevard Clemenceau
office and do what they want and the way they believe is best. This
is possible, and is not a crime - it is free software, it is their
software, they can choose whatever style of software development they
like. Recent change in the way documentation is managed - from wiki,
to which some people (like me) did in their time contribute a lot -
towards a closed documentation repository - seem to confirm it. But for
the sake of integrity they should say it is so - just admit that it is a
"cathedral", or "ivory tower" project, and stop pretending it is a
real "community project" (or even an open source project) because
that is cheating people.

Otherwise - if you are not happy about it and would really like this
project to have an active developer and user community - please state
what you are going to do to make it happen. Open Source is truly not
magic - just sitting there and complaining that people do not
contribute won't do the trick. There are thousands of successful OS
projects out there, and it is not a rocket science - it is not
difficult to learn what it takes to make an OS project at least
developer-friendly. This book: http://producingoss.com/ can be a good
start.

Please answer - and let's have it settled once and for good.

Bartek

[1] 

-- 
"Po co zaraz idealny stan? Czy nie lepiej, kiedy nikt nie może zrobić z
nikogo abażura do lampy?" (Mec. Finkelstein, w: Stanisław Lem "Wizja
Lokalna")