[Zope-dev] Open Letter to zope-dev

[Joachim Werner]

I seem to have to comment on most of the mails in this thread. Sorry for
that ;-)

> Personally, I think ZC are trying very hard, but are not getting it
> right.  I'm also very sure they are taking this conversation
> seriously.  Brian responded very quickly to the userfolder 'api'
> issues.  They commit a *lot* in terms of software and support (IMO)
> but little in terms of fostering a community.  But then, why should
> *they* be responsible for this?

My experience from EuroZope is that we would desperately need some paid
"community workers". The Zope community seems to be much more professional
than others, which means that there are not enough people with too much free
time to run the infrastructure. Most of us contribute a lot, but can't
afford doing even more without neglecting the day-to-day business.

> 1) Just because no-one can ever agree about splitting up the
>    mailing lists, what's to stop somebody setting one up unilaterally?
>    Perhaps the people who care strongly about this should just set up
>    an egroup?  I'm sure ZC would link to it from zope.org.  Come on
>    somebody, set up a forum at zope-newbies@yahoogroups.com, today,
>    right now, and continue the discussion there.

I personally don't think we need more mailing lists. However, we might need
better FAQs/howtos to get the "noise" from the lists.

>   I think the wiki format puts people off
>    because they're not familiar with it.  How about a familiar-looking
>    discussion board on each proposal, too?

Yes, that's a good point.

> 3) Another thing mentioned regularly: the zope.org community site is
>    pretty bad.
>    I think, just as the respository is beginning to
>    open up, so should construction of zope.org.  There should be a
>    mailing list, some members of the community should be appointed to
>    some kind of committee, and ZC should always have some
>    representation on it.  But it should be led by the people for whom
>    it exists in the first place, IMO. Collectively, we have a vast
>    array of talented designers, programmers, information
>    architects, etc, at our disposal.  Will ZC countenance this
>    proposal? If not, should we be working on our own community site?

We have discussed about that at most of the EuroZope meetings. But still
nobody has had enough resources to start. We'd need a Zope-based site that
has all the functionality of sourceforge and even more. Zope CAN do that,
but zope.org is not a good example indeed. I'd like to be ably to comment on
a product right in place, post bug fixes, how-tos and extensions right on
the product's site, get reliable information whether a product works with a
certain version of Zope etc.

Joachim