[development] Fwd: Drupal.org uprade: contributed module dependencies

[Greg Knaddison]

On Nov 27, 2007 10:46 AM, Gordon Heydon <gordon at heydon.com.au> wrote:
<snip stuff about developer motivations>

> ATM I feel that majority of the heavy lifting when it comes to coding is
> still being done by a small group of people. I know the bar is being
> lowered when it comes to developing for Drupal (developing != coding) as
> it is a lot more point and click to get Drupal to do things.

Statistics show otherwise - each successive version of Drupal sees
more people participating in the issue queue and more people
contributing patches 4.7 saw 338 patch contributors while 5.0 saw 492
patch contributors.  Drumm's presentation about "who uploaded the
first attachment" to the core issue queue shows a concentration in
small numbers of people (err...person...chx) but it also showed a
really long tail.

See http://groups.drupal.org/node/6551 for more stastics.

> I think we need to find ways to get the coders working on the major
> contributed modules like  views and cck (if we do not have these modules
> at the release of Drupal 6 it will be very bad) working on getting the
> Drupal 6 releases done.

That's largley up to the module maintainers and the people they can
motivate to get involved.  CCK is actually reasonably close.  Views
and Project are a bigger concern since they hold up Drupal.org and
they are both actively seeking help (though not always getting it).

> Maybe the Drupal Association needs to not only deal with the
> infrastructure but maybe also look at bringing on some full time coders
> whos job it is to not only code for Core, but also run around the edges
> and bring some of the more important contributed modules up to the next
> release.

AFAIK, that's against the bylaws. See
http://association.drupal.org/about/introduction

It's a little confusing though since it says it can't direct "planning
or development" but it could "Support development by awarding grants
or paying wages."  Perhaps someone from the association could clarify
that.  I'm not sure the association has funds to do this anyway.

> We do need to make sure the major contributed modules are all go at the
> time of the Drupal 6 release. I know myself that I couldn't deploy sites
> without views and cck (I could but I don't want to go back to the dark
> old days before views and cck) and there are most likely other modules
> that people would consider show stoppers.

Certainly valid, but Drupal6 is still a moving target which makes work
towards porting less valuable.  Many developers wait for an RC prior
to working on their ports.  See http://groups.drupal.org/node/5036 for
details on the status of many modules - many of which are updated.

And if I can hijack attention even further afield from the initial
messages...one idea that might help contribs get updated faster is
currently sitting with a bunch of +1 in the forums: "Developer
releases -- release early, release often"
http://drupal.org/node/190901

Regards,
Greg

-- 
Greg Knaddison
Denver, CO | http://knaddison.com
World Spanish Tour | http://wanderlusting.org/user/greg