[TYPO3-dam] Any new news?

[ben van 't ende [netcreators]]

Hi Ekki,

Djeezz! In theory this is all nice, but practically there is nothing going on.
Why would your list suddenly start anything? Michiel has started a practical
solution on http://www.netcreators.com/development/dam/. I was really amazed by
his pragmatic undertaking. He is struggling with one final bug and then most big
bugs will be taken care of. If there really is no action taken DAM will be
forked. Time and time again we have seen on this list that when under pressure
something is started and nothing came of it. I am really impressed by DAM and I
use it for most new projects. As far as DAM education concerns I do not see why
a clever developer cannot work on DAM without a DAM "education".

> b) We believe that it is important to keep René involved, since it is
> his "baby" and he still has veery amazing knowledge in TYPO3 and
> surroundings. We have to respect the fact that for personal reasons, his
> availabilty is currently rather low, and that he is not going to do too
> much voluntary work on the project since he did really much in the past
> which didn't "pay off" (not only in the monetary meaning).

I do not understand the deal with "pay off". Working on OS projects should be a
personal itch. I can understand not having a financial "pay off" can get you in
a tight spot, though. Isn't it a "pay off" to have the respect of all these
people on the list thanking Rene for what he did? Or am I being to idealistic
with this approach?

> c) So what we did is try to figure out a "DAM Support Model" that is
> aimed to
> - ensure a good and permanent maintenance
> - boost the DAM support in core + 3rd-party extensions
>   (e.g. by good support for ext developers)
> - bring DAM to the future (interaction with TYPO3 v5)
> - make sure that extra features people want (and are willing to pay for)
>   get implemented short-term (if it makes any sense)

I will only start believing any of this if the latest DAM will be put into SVN
on typo3xdev. We will immediately fix 4 or 5 major bugs (as we have done
already) and maybe more unpaid ;-)

> d) This model has to include a second developer who is getting educated
> on DAM-internals by René, and who is able to smoothly co-operate with
> him. And can unburden René from the every-day (or at least -week)
> maintenance and communication work, including those times where René is
> not available at all.
> This second maintainer is (as you may have noticed) Sven Gähle.

Who is Sven? Really never heard of him. Where did anyone notice him?

> e) Both René and Sven will receive a monthly funding (though on
> different levels) that allows them to follow the targets named above.
> They will be able work together at Sven's office (close to René), or
> other places.

This is no guarantee for anything.

> f) The money required needs to be collected from a number of interested
> companies, on a low but regular base. By now, the TYPO3partner member
> companies plus a small number of others have agreed to chip in, but to
> really move forward we will have to double that number.

You will need to set targets. What needs to be fixed and who needs new features.
And I do not mean general targets like getting it TYPO3 5.0 compliant. Also
developers need to be able to contribute. I do not see this anywhere in your
list. I see a lot of pay and "pay off". Put the DAM thing into SVN ;-)

> g) The whole thing has already started but is basically still in
> education mode, and also not with "full power" since we do not yet have
> the full funding.

This is vague. I can't see anything being started.

> h) Of course, the entire concept is non-commercial, i.e. all money goes
> 100% to the developers, while the extra fame goes to all of the sponsors.
> 
> These things have first been announced at the CeBIT, see
> http://www.typo3partner.net/news/newsdetails/artikel/dam-support-by-typo3partner.html
> - but a real presentation of the concept to the public has yet to come.
> An information on typo3.org will be ready by the end of this month.
> (sorry I know we're slow here, but there are internal questions that
> need to be sorted out.) Whoever likes to get in touch quicker, for now
> please use http://www.typo3partner.net/kontakt.html. (For those who
> wonder: The DAM Support Model will be a _non_-TYPO3partner project from
> the moment it goes public.)
> 
> 
> I strongly believe this is very good news - at least the concept was
> designed with the best intentions by companies that are as much
> interested in (and have been suffering from) DAM as probably all of you :-)

As you may have noticed I do not consider this very good news. You also mention
"best intentions" and that does not mean much good to me. I am no saint either,
though, I have promised some support as well previously where I failed miserably
in really doing it, but this thing is going on for so long already.

I really really appreciate your best intentions, but I would like to see more
than a list.

p/s Will this be a german undertaking only?

gRTz

ben
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