[TYPO3-dev] Voting + sponsoring of bug-fixing in Forge

[Ernesto Baschny]

Hi Michael,

thanks for bringing that into our attention. Georg and Jigal already
gave you good answers. Just one more ideas thrown in:

There are no strict rules and the voting is just an indicator but not a
guarantee that someone will actually take a look at it - as you have
noted. What you can always do is to bring certain bugs into a more
broader attention by writing to:

a) the core list (typo3.teams.core)
b) the current release manager (myself) or the core team leader (Olly Hader)

We usually know what the priorities are at the moment and who could or
should work on that. If you are interested in sponsoring "someone" to
actually fix a bug (or add a feature), just mention that in your mail to
us and we can then see how we can make a match (i.e. by asking the
active contributors if there is interest).

After all, fixing a bug is more than a "one-man-thing", because it
requires one person to fix the bug and at least two others to review the
changes. Meaning that if you are sponsoring, it might be handy to gather
a "3-man-team" around it (which is not so easy depending on the context
of the change).

Another added complexity that by looking at a bug report its usually not
easy (and usually even impossible) to estimate the amount time that will
be required to fix it. So getting €100 sponsored but having then to work
for two weeks on it doesn't make sense. Which is also why "sponsoring
bug fixes" usually doesn't work so easily. :)

Please be aware that this particular bug is very important and I
personally want also that it gets fixed for at least the release of 6.2
LTS (see http://forge.typo3.org/projects/typo3cms-v62/wiki/Issues for a
list of other "important issues").

Kind regards,
Ernesto

Michael Bakonyi schrieb am 06.09.2013 10:40:
> Hi,
> 
> before I aks my questions beyond I'd like to point out, that I don't
> want to offend anybody of you devs investing a lot of (often unpayed)
> time in bringing TYPO3 forward. Although I work with TYPO3 for some
> years know as an integrator I'd just like know the inner processes of
> the TYPO3-community regarding development. Until now I didn't find any
> docs about them. So:
> 
> First I wonder if the voting-feature within forge is taken into account
> regarding the priority of bug-fixing issues. How do you
> (core-)deveolpers decide which bugs are worth fixing and why?
> 
> As example there's a bug posted 6 months ago with 21 votes:
> 
> http://forge.typo3.org/issues/45859
> 
> which didn't get fixed until now. To strengthen the spirit of community
> I think it would make sense to take the votings into account to a
> greater extent. Then (as a non-developer) one has the feeling that my
> voice is heared.
> 
> Second I wonder if it's worth thinking about implementing a
> bug-sponsoring-feature within forge. Maybe there's a functionality
> within forge already, which could get activated. If you think it's worth
> it, I could research that. We had that kind of "feature" within the old
> bugtracker in Mantis. In Forge regarding some bugs I offered sponsoring
> of bugfixings within the comments of an issue but never got asked to
> sponsor it and I always wondered why. Maybe it's against the spirit of
> TYPO3 paying for development but I don't think so. Everyone has to live
> with ugly money ... But maybe sponsoring would be accepted to a greater
> extent, if there was a feature where several people could "throw
> together" some money if one dev says "I'll do it but I need X EUR for it")?
> 
> Would be glad to hear some thoughts from you.
> 
> Cheers,
> Michael


-- 
Ernesto Baschny
TYPO3 CMS Core Developer
Release Manager TYPO3 4.5 & 6.2 LTS

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