[Typo3-dev] The Right Crew

[Robert Lemke]

Hi Kasper and Peter,

Kasper Skårhøj wrote:

> I think I agree on all of your points! I even agree that I'm a poor leader
> in the current situation. The T3A board is probably not the "everyday"
> leader you are looking for. The "R&D" committee is a better option, maybe
> someone would like to join that - but beware, it takes some commitment.
> 
> Robert, what do you think about Peters points below?

First I'd like to say that it doesn't take only one leader who solves all
the issues mentioned. One example, I currently have a very good feeling
with is that I do the organisational part in the R&D committee while Kasper
clearly is the chief developer. Although we share a common ground we are
working from different perspectives, which together gives us a broader
view.

>> It is time to change focus from "building" to "maintaining"
>> Typo3. And for that we need people with other qualities I think...

We definately need both, the visionary proces which takes care of the future
architecture and development, and the maintaining part, granting a solid
quality and documentation.

Unfortunately to most members of the community the building part seems to be
more appealing - but as you said, we can't work without the maintaining
part.

>> 1. Coordination
>> The most important thing. We have a lot of people and a lot of
>> ideas, but we need someone to coordinate them!

You're right. Coordination is a full time job, which we hopefully can afford
some day. Currently we can't and so I try to figure out what tools we can
create or use in order to have some "automatic coordination".

While discussing with other developers, I developed some ideas for community
tools for typo3.org. As I'm busy with the TER 2 currently I had to postpone
these ideas until somewhen, but if someone takes the lead for creating such
tools or improving typo3.org, I will provide all help I can.

>From my point of view Kasper's question refined would be: Who coordinates?
As soon as we have coordination in the different fields, volunteers will
contribute more. 

>> 2. Guidelines
>> We do not need pragmatism, we need guidelines! We need someone
>> who can take the visions and form them into roadmaps. Someone
>> that can say "this is the way we should go".

That's also pragmatic and we do that at certain parts. One decision I took -
finally - without asking anyone further is to base the new Repository on
DocBook. Now that it's done and it works I can create a document which
draws a future perspective for documentation in TYPO3 and hope that some
feels appealed by the topic.

By the way: @Peter Kindström: I'm really sorry that you didn't get the
acknowledgments from me either. I silently watched the process in the
DocTeam and tried to design the TER in a way that you have an ideal future
playground. Unfortunately I was too late with that ... or maybe you find it
sexy enough to give it another try?

>> 3. Stamina.
>> We need a lot of this, yes. But not in every person involved in
>> the community. Instead we need someone who month after month are
>> trying to find and encourage other people to help. A headhunter
>> always searching for new volunteers.

Or some tools displaying open tasks and fostering the connections between
developers. ( (fun-)part of the 4.0 roadmap originally was a tool called
"automatic conversation")

>> 4. Vision
>> We have this already in the community. BUT, we need people that
>> are able to find the good ideas and transform them into
>> projects/real code.
>> 
>> So what I suggest is that we try to look for new kinds of people
>> leading the future development of Typo3! I think Kasper has done
>> a great job but - no offense - is it time for someone else to
>> take the lead?

We might do a medium bad job at communication, but "behind the scenes"
there's a lot evolving towards a visionary architecture and a futuristic
5.0. 

I'm open to suggestions, but I think the so-called core team currently forms
a good team, with Kasper being a good chief developer and me keeping the
developers on the same track. By the way, if you don't that page, it's
worth looking at the projects 4.0 overview [1].

>> This pragmatic "freedom" way is not bad, but maybe Typo3 could
>> benefit from some guidelines and coordination?

Generally: yes. Can you give examples what guidelines you would like to
have?

>> PS. It does not have to but one single person. Instead it should
>> be a group of people - maybe the T3A board?

The R&D committee - and that's already the case.

Thanks for your input Peter,
cheers

robert


[1] http://association.typo3.org/index.php?id=83

-- 
Robert Lemke
TYPO3 Association - Research & Development
Member of the board
http://association.typo3.org