[TYPO3-english] [TYPO3-dev] Contribution to community extensions

Xavier Perseguers xavier at typo3.org
Sat Aug 16 10:15:32 CEST 2014


Dear TYPO3 community developers and users,

I'd like to start a thread to gather feedback on the issues/worries you 
may have (or not) to:

1) Report problems in the extension's bug tracker
2) Get feedback from authors about the ticket (*)
3) Fix bugs, provide correction to the author and get it packed in a new 
release
4) If a patch is available, testing it before an official release
5) ...

(*) as an extension author, I must admit I have sometimes the problem 
that a community member properly reports a bug but in a "fire and 
forget" way, so that discussion with him/her is then impossible and 
usually leads to tickets being open for a very long time until they 
simply get abandoned.

As you see, there are many axes for the discussion but my concern is:

1) Some extensions are using Git/Gerrit so that workflow is same as 
TYPO3 Core, from my point of view, this is cool because it prevents wild 
forks while keeping the same (known) workflow as when contributing to 
the Core but getting up to speed may be difficult for non-developers.

2) Some extensions are still using Subversion (on Forge) and 
contributing with attached patches is old-fashioned but works if author 
is active and quick to answer/tackle the issue

3) Some extensions have no bug tracker, no actual contact, or are slow 
to provide feedback about new tickets that it's "no fun anymore"

Finally,

4) Some extensions are now continuously developed on GitHub (or similar 
platforms) and authors are not really releasing anything anymore on TER, 
or - similar problem - the extension is forked many times and nobody 
(from the outside) can easily say which fork is "the best to take".

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. Together we may certainly find 
some answers and rethink how contribution should evolve.


-- 
Xavier Perseguers
TYPO3 CMS Team Member

TYPO3 .... inspiring people to share!
Get involved: http://typo3.org


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