[TYPO3-core] Proposal for the upcoming Roadmap and LTS

[Dmitry Dulepov]

Hi!

Lukas Rueegg [RTP] wrote:
> I know. And I can understand that you don't like this work! I just want
> to make sure that we're talking about the same reasons...

Well, there was time when I did not object to earn some extra money for 
such unpleasant and boring work as backporting fixes to older releases and 
testing them. I would do that with proper quality and dedication as I do 
any paid work. But it was always said that TYPO3 work is free work, so devs 
will not be paid unless it is a project, which is important to T3A.

I think TYPO3 development (excluding Neos and its projects) mostly lives on 
two types of developers:
- enthusiasts, which wear off in 0.5-3 years and disappear
- devs paid by agencies to do changes that agencies need

I always thought that this model is very risky to have because it is not 
possible to rely on any devs from these groups. Any of them could have 
"more important stuff to do" and that happened many times in the past when 
declared projects were delayed by 1-2 releases or canceled. Other projects 
are certainly introduced because enthusiasts are simply interested in them. 
So there is no definite list of what comes into the next release. It is all 
by guess and chance.

On the other hand, paid work (as Neos, etc) tends to go for years without 
producing usable results, which causes doubts that paid work is really 
effective.

I'd say the best working model for TYPO3 would be like this:
- paid core team leader + release managers for mantained releases
- 2-3 paid devs, who work full time for TYPO3
- any enthusiasts, who want to work as a core team
- strict scheduler for paid people when and what to deliver (proper project 
management for them)

Of course, there are issues with this model too:
- why X gets paid and Y does not?
- why other teams are not paid even though they are very important too 
(infrastructure, documentation, etc)?

I think this is a set of questions that T3A should think of and decide. 
Their major task should be to ensure that we get stable development, which 
also moves forward using the defined roadmap. Otherwise we will always have 
these discussions that do not yield any useful results.

-- 
Dmitry Dulepov

Simplicity will save the world.