<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><html> Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote:</html><blockquote type="cite"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"></font></p></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">...it took less to write code than understand what the module</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">really did or compare it with modules with similar functionality.</div><div>...</div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">With smaller modules sometimes choosing</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">takes more than writing.</font></p> </blockquote></div><br><div>And isn't taking the time to evaluate existing functionality fundamental to participating effectively in an open source project? I'd argue that someone who is universally unable to so is likely to hinder more than help the community effort.</div><div><br></div><div> For non-community use, such as for clients or other private projects, developers might create a custom module rather than using existing community code. These custom modules don't have much effect on the community because they don't reach the contrib repository.</div><div><br></div><div>I don't support a policy that universally outlaws the creation of contrib modules that provide already existing functionality. I think some degree of overlap is to be expected and should be tolerated and in some cases embraced by the community.</div><div><br></div><div>However, the act of contributing of a new project that provides overlapping or duplicate functionality should be one that is made deliberately, with an understanding by the contributor of why s/he is doing so.</div><div><br></div><div>What is unhelpful to the community is contribution of "yet another module" that provides the same functionality as two or three other individual modules without a good reason, or at least an explanation on that module's project page.</div><div><br></div><div>I propose that if a project is potentially a duplicate of another module, that an explanation of any differences and the reason for creating a separate module be required in that module's project description. This explanation does not necessarily have to be officially accepted by the community to meet this requirement, but project description pages that read, "Because I didn't check the contrib repository" (for whatever reason) can be evaluated in part, on that statement by the project's maintainer.</div><div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div><br></div><div>Ezra Gildesgame</div><div><br></div></body></html>