[Typo3-dev] I don't want to fork!

[Eric Blom]

Hello Elmar,
Thank you for your well thought out reply to my questions.

I don't think that I'm knowledgeable enough on the details for Typo3  
to establish a team to coordinate FE plugin development across the  
board. However, I've already put myself, at my own site, in the  
position of managing the development of a more integrated front end  
user account system and would be open to the idea of managing a  
community based project that was interested in this goal.

When I first started with Typo3 about 2 years ago I had hopes of  
doing more coding on my own site. But, now I realize that if I'm  
really going to make progress on my sites I have to shift into  
project manager role and contract out the actual development work.  
This has become easier for me recently as I've gotten a sponsor for  
my site.

Elmar, I'm interested in finding out more about what requirements you  
see for a "portal system" or what "group ware features" are needed.  
My hope is that there is some overlap between what I'm trying to  
accomplish and what others in the Typo3 community are looking for.  
This falls more into the category of your second suggestion which was  
to extend the best of the existing extensions in a way that they work  
together well. I feel my work is somewhat aligned with that  
suggestion. My concern is that without input from the community/ 
leaders of Typo3 my work will not be suitable for general use because  
it will be contrary to the official development of Typo3.

Perhaps the best way to move forward is by discussing the development  
that I would like to do for my site on this email list and see what  
feedback I get? I don't want to use this topic for that discussion  
because I would like to keep this one a general discussion on how  
best to work with the Typo3 community as a whole.

In addition to the quote you put in your email Elmar I've seen some  
discussions on the state of extensions with Typo3. My summary of what  
I ready is as follows. Typo3 is a development platform or framework  
where the available content (extensions) is mostly community  
developed in an ad-hock fashion.  As Typo3 has grown the user base  
has also changed from one that is very comfortable programming to one  
that is looking for the plugins (extensions) they need rather than  
doing their own development. This distinction between the two user  
groups can be seen in the developer vs the user mailing lists. As  
more users focus on finding the plugins they need to extend the basic  
framework the community as a whole becomes more dependent on the  
documentation and available Typo3 extensions. The community also is  
less concerned with core enhancements because their ability to get  
something working to meet their needs is based on the quality of the  
documentation and extensions not the flexibility of the framework.

Is there any consensus on what core functionality sites want? I see  
tt_news as being part of that list and an extension that is well  
developed. However, I also see FE news submission, calendar, user  
registration, newsletters, and subscriptions as core functionality  
and they are less developed.

I'm hopeful that digital asset management (DAM) will provide the next  
level of functionality that I see. In all three of the websites I've  
created I have a strong need for the management of a large number of  
files in a way that provides the visitor easy access to them.

I wish that I had more skill with Typo3 to just make some of the  
things happen, but, I don't. However, I'm very much interested in  
figuring out how I can help the Typo3 community as I work on my own  
site. Kasper has created an amazing tool in Typo3. What makes his  
accomplish even more amazing is that he made the conscience decision  
that Typo3 was the way he was called to be a good steward of his  
talents.

Cheers,
Eric