[TYPO3-english] direct_mail TYPO3 6.0.x

[Jigal van Hemert]

Hi,

On 4-5-2013 19:37, Olivier Dobberkau wrote:
> Am 04.05.13 10:09, schrieb Jigal van Hemert:
>
>> If you can't (or won't) maintain an extension that's used by many
>> people, maybe it's time to ask for others to take over and if no-one is
>> interested you could release one last version with the state "obsolete".
>> At least the situation would be clear for the entire community.
>
> we are maintaining the extension, but we do this in our freetime and
> neither ivan and i like this kind of expecting attitude.

The text was meant in a neutral way without any attitude at all. It 
wasn't about expecting something, but about clear communication.
If an extension is often used, but not updated many people still have 
their hopes up that an update will soon come.

It's perfectly understandable that the author of an extension loses 
interest in it. Maybe he/she doesn't use it anymore, his/her focus has 
shifted to other things, etc. All very valid reasons. Still there is a 
group of people out there who hope for an update.
My suggestion (that's why I used words like "maybe", "could") was that 
the author could ask if someone else might be interested. In the past 
this has proven to work. See for example the history of dam_frontend. 
There was a security problem and the author didn't show interest in 
fixing it. The result was that the extension was removed from TER. About 
a month later a group of people had taken over the extension and 
published an updated version.
If nobody is interested then it wouldn't be a bad thing to indicate 
that. Some extension author have published a last version with state 
"obsolete" and an upload message that they won't develop it any further. 
This is just clear communication to the community. If someone is 
interested in further development later on he/she can easily take over.

> i really dont like this in open source. its not a one way street. if you
> have an itch, dont expect others to scratch you.

In a community it isn't necessarily a bad thing to scratch other peoples 
itches. To step away from the scratch analogy: not everybody can fix 
everything themselves. Some people like to do designs, some like to take 
care of servers, others are passionate about documentation, etc.
The same is true for extensions. I use extensions built and maintained 
by others. They probably fix issues they don't have a problem with 
themselves or add features others need. In return I fix issues in the 
core and my own extensions.

In my personal opinion it's not realistic that everybody fixes his/her 
own problems. In a community each does what he/she does best. Even 
building TYPO3 based sites is a form of promotion, reporting issues is a 
form of testing, answering posts in the lists is a way to provide support.

It's certainly not a one way street. To move the TYPO3 CMS product 
forward both the core and the extensions need to stay up-to-date and 
improve.

Sorry if the message came across in a wrong way. Originally I wanted to 
know if there was anything blocking for Direct Mail to work with 6.0. 
Maybe there was a huge problem with the way the core behaved. Your 
answer was that it was only a matter of time an money. My suggestion was 
to communicate it with the users of Direct Mail (or ask for someone who 
has the time to maintain it). Please don't understand this as an 
attitude or expecting you to do all the work and others to only take 
advantage of it.

-- 
Jigal van Hemert
TYPO3 CMS Core Team member

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