RE: [Phpgroupware-developers] Re: Standard source code header and php Documentor

[Christian Böttger]

G'day!


> Christian, it is 100% ok that company needs to earn money. 
> And i think any
> one  here is happy to see more people contribute code to phpgroupware.

Fine.

> 
> But....
> 
> I think, you(as company) are doing it the wrong way.

Well, let's assume we have a customer who wants certain modifications on
phpGW done for use in his company. Of course the result is still GPL and
copyrights are assigned to FSF or FSF Europe. Now we may have and most
probably will have the case that some of these modifications are in line
with the overall goals of the phpGW project and some are not. What are we
suppose to do? Refuse to work for the customer? I guess not. 
The only solution I can think of is that we do perform the job and offer the
modifications to the phpGW project so that all can decide what to take over
and what not to take over. 

Obviously we would like to have as much as possible being incorporated into
the phpGW project. But for those parts that don't fit, we then still can
maintain a patch set for customers who want the modified version; of course
as GPL software and free others as well.

 
> You don't communicate and integrate into the developer community.

Proof by assumption?


> may really not
> be perfect, but the way you told us, was not very nice.

well, agreed. But we do hire developers mostly for their development skills,
not for their social skills in written communications in a foreign language.

 
> You put much work in version 0.9.14. 0.9.14 is dead after the 
> next release.

Correct.

> The changes between 0.9.14 and 0.9.16 are very big. This 
> makes no sense for me.

Well, rather simple: 0.9.16 was not ready in time for the deadlines we had
and still have. We had to start. Now we are porting the results from 0.9.14
to 0.9.16 before publishing them. That's one of the reasons why there's not
much code from our side around. It just takes time.

> You contributed a very impressive database picture. It may be 
> much work, but for me it is totaly useless. It is not important for me.
Just 
> my personal opinion!!!

Fine. It was just a proposal or better: an example how it could look like as
well. We needed the database model anyway for other purposes, so it wasn't
any time "wasted".

 
> Kai did put much work into research of the code, to 
> understand what's going on. Looks very professional. But we as the project
have other 
> problems:
> 
> - addressbook/accounts integration

Yes, we know. We would like to do somethimg about that, but we haven't had
any good ideas suitable to be communicated yet.

> - security review

Sorry, not our scope.

> - documantation

Kai offered work for that; we're still in this thread.

> This would be topics which could give you really good credit.

see above.

> About our CeBIT meeting. 
> I would like to see, that you "outsource" some parts of your 
> work to other developers. You told us that this was not possible, because 
> you can only engage people from lower saxony(a country of germany). 

Correct.

> No problem, that's the way it works. But nobody of the german developers
is 
> living in lower saxony.... ;)

Unfortunately not. In the farer future we hope to be able to raise more
interest in phpGW based consulting and custumozing work, but that's surely
more than a year ahead. If we will be able to get enough commercial
customers for this, we will definitely think about ways to hire people for
certain jobs here. But that depends on the commercial success.


> We don't need your work. 

As I said: fine with me. Just don't include it. 

> And if phpgw fails, we can go home 
> and watching tv.

Me either. 

> Because the other day earn our living again.

Oh, I'm sure we'll find other work as well. We have other business branches
as well.

> But i think, you save much money, when you can use our work as your
> codebase. If you like to split of, and want to create your 
> own project, you are free to do this. But i don't think that this is a
cost-effective
> solution.

As stated above: we will always come into the situation that a customer
wants and pays for things which are not accepted (for good reasons) by the
project. So we either have to reject the job or have to maintain an own
patch set (but hopefully not an own version).

 
> I don't want you to split of, because i'm happy about any contributor.

That's fine!


 
> Please, be aware that english is not my native language. I 
> hope i did not offend any one.

Neither is it my native language, must of us are in the same boat in this
matter.

Regards

Christian


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