Re: LYNX-DEV Lynx development process

[Scott McGee (Personal)]

Michael Sokolov asks about the Lynx development team organization. I guess I
am almost as qualified as anyone to answer that.

There is no one set way in which Lynx development has always taken place. It
started out at the University of Kansas. As I understand, Fote worked to add
and support VMS support. Later, when UKans efforts slowed, Fote continued
to unofficially develop the code. UKans picked up much of (or was it all?) 
Fote's work, and made it an official release. Later, they dropped development
and Fote was the principal developer becaus he was most knowlegable and
experienced, and everyone seemed happy with it that way. 

In more recent times, Fote retired from an official role in development, and
things sort of floated for a while. Finally, a few of the leading contributors
started talking about a concerted development cycle. I offered space on
sol.slcc.edu for them to coordinate this. By concensus among them, Klaus took
on the pricipal role as lead developer during this phase. Since Klaus is now
out of contact, the other developers in the group are woking out how to 
reorganize their efforts.

Now, as to your potential patch. If you write the patch, and submit it, one
of several things could happen. 

  1. The developers add the patch to the development code
  2. The developers express intrest, but don't add the code pending testing,
     bug fixes, etc.
  3. The developers are not convinced that your code is desirable, and do
     nothing with it.

In case 1, you're done expect that you are expected to continue to contribute
patches for continued development or bug fixes for your code. In case 2, you
do (or get others to do) the desired testing or bug fixes, and resubmit. In
case 3, it's up to you. Some have dropped the idea in such cases. Laura Eaves
was faced with such a situation, and went on to provide support, bug fixes, and
development for her code on her site until she had sufficient information to
convince the developers that her ideas shoud be included, and they are now.

Basically, if you are timid or controversial, there isn't much point to 
working on lynx code. If you want to contribute, you have to learn how to
work within the code already in place, support and advocate your code, and
work with the current developers to get it added.

Scott

Scott McGee: Salt Lake Community College Webmaster | When in danger,
___________________________________________________| or in doubt,
Email: address@hidden (Scott McGee)         | run in circles,
Web:   http://www.slcc.edu/infotech/webmaster.html | scream and shout.
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