[TYPO3-english] TYPO3 6.0 at the corner? How is it possible

[François Suter]

Hi,

> I guess this approach is not for everybody, as I've seen lots of
> agencies which just take TYPO3, use it and don't become even T3A
> members. They are justs like a horde of locust for TYPO3 and once this
> CMS is gone they move on to the next system, or they run a double/triple
> strategy already.   But, I also do believe that there are others which
> want to contribute. We should also try to get aware of them - no matter
> if they "only" send money or if they want to develop.

I don't think we can avoid that. We don't live in a society where values 
like sharing and cooperating are strong. Instead people learn from 
school to compete with each other. I consider myself lucky to be able to 
work with open source software because it is also a political and social 
statement from a personal point of view.

That being said, non-contributing users still expand the user base and 
make the product more alive.

> Why not trying to listen more to new agencies or freelancers which wants
> to contribute? Please take a look at the comments on buzz. Afaik there
> were at least 2-3 which complaint that they tried to contribute, but
> didn't manage to get in touch with the T3A or responsible people.
> Actually it also took us some years to get it touch with some of the
> "old guys".
> Why not having some sort of "Want to contribute? Join us" Banner on the
> new typo3.org? This could then lead to a page showing Ben with his
> contacts as a community manager. He could channel then these requests.

I agree that we are definitely missing an easy system for allowing 
people to contribute in various ways. The fact is that - in order for 
this to work properly - it requires a real structure to be in place. I 
experienced this last year when I sent out a call for documentation 
translators. Quite a few volunteers showed up and I realized that we 
(Doc Team) were not really ready: we didn't have a proper "introduction" 
for new translators, we lacked workflows, etc.

IIRC there was a "Participate" page for a while on typo3.org, but have a 
link/page/banner is not enough. There must be some structure welcoming 
people and directing them to the appropriate contact, maybe also 
filtering the requests to make sure that they are serious.

The fact that the TYPO3 community has grown quite a bit over the years 
and we need some new organization, but this is not so easy to set up, 
especially since we have been a very much technically-minded community 
until recently.

Let's stay confident that we can keep improving!

-- 

Francois Suter
Cobweb Development Sarl - http://www.cobweb.ch