[Typo3-dev] Extension reviewing process (request for discussion)

[Robert Lemke]

Hi Michael,

Michael Scharkow wrote:

> I think self-recruitment is an option, like in many other open source
> projects, people can participate at a basic level, like reporting bugs,
> or reviewing extensions, and then gain a reputation by doing a good job
> at that, leading to a more prominent "reviewer" role. This bottom-up
> approach is still very rare in the Typo3 development, in many situations
> in the past Kasper has delegated responsibility to trusted people like
> Ingmar, Daniel and you which is good for stability but a lot of work for
> the selected few ;)

True, but why is this approach rare? Because people are waiting for Kasper
to ask them doing a certain task? Kasper once brought up the term "self
igniting fireworks" - just come up with an idea and put it into reality.

>> What do you think about a reviewing weekend? We would me for a
>> Friday-to-Sunday reviewing session together with Kasper, René and whoever
>> wants to join.
> 
> That's exactly my point: You three are doing too much work already (only
>   in the last week I read in this NG that you are taking over typo3.org,
> the TER and some dozen other important things). Don't get me wrong, I
> appreciate your and the other core-devs work a lot and I cannot imagine
> how you find the time and energy to do it, but I think you really should
> not be bothered with maintaining the community website, moderating the
> newsgroups, keeping the FAQs up-to-date, etc. These are community things
> which can also be done by none-devs.

I agree, but I didn't mean it this way. My idea is to organize a
three-day-power-review weekend in Dennmark. It is meant to gather a bunch
of people who want to help reviewing extensions, it should be developers
not being involved in reviews yet. We would meet in a nice house next to
the sea and do reviews all day long.

We'll have to calculate how big that group should be, but I think 20 people
should be fine. And of course there has to be an incentive why these
volunteers would travel to Denmark and review extensions. This is what I
imagine:

 - The house and catering will be sponsored by members of the community
   who are interested in reviewed extensions

 - Some members of the "authorized extension mentor" group would be there 
   and answer questions about extension programming and reviewing. I would
   ask Kasper, René, Ingmar, Julle and Dan for now, anyone else?

 - A power-review-weekend will be fun, you will learn a lot and gain 
   reputation in the community
  
That weekend should happen right before a final release of the TYPO3 core
(3.8.0 would be realistic), because after having reviewed most of the
extensions, we will agree on a selection of extensions which will delivered
as part of the official TYPO3 package.

Of course we'll have to prepare some things on typo3.org to make these
things happen and it might be march 2005 until the release of 3.8.0 ...

-- 
robert