[development] RFC: drupal as a moving target

[Ivan Sergio Borgonovo]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:38:13 -0700
"Steven Peck" <sepeck at gmail.com> wrote:

> >  This is not a black mail. I already made a 8000+ line investment
> > in Drupal, I hope it will be out of the gates in the coming weeks.

> Sure it is.  You brought it up as an example with the implied I will
> take my toys and go home and that people would blink.  I realize you

As much as "we are the doers" you're not.

> Not really.  If you are not involved, then you don't get a vote or
> influence.  Really.  There are times in the 4.7 -> 5.x cycle and
> also the 5.x -> 6.x where I did not have time to pay attention to
> the issue queue and as a result core module behavior and/or other
> decisions were made that I did not like/agree with.  That's all
> right, they worked out but because I did not have time to be
> involved, I did not get to vote in those cases.  People did not
> stop and send me an email to solicit my opinion on things, they
> discussed and arrived at a solution.

I understand the problem and I'm aware of the time it takes to take
the responsibility to listen everyone even if they are busy doing
something else.
That's why I posted an email asking what is and what I should expect
it will be the "policy" on cost of upgrades.

> It doesn't take that much work to pay attention to the issue tracker
> and trends.  It doesn't take that much time to occasionally pull
> something down and test it.  And that time you spend is so
> infinitely valuable and results in some seriously important
> dividends.  It gets another set of eyes on code/changes.  It gets

It takes time to learn. At this moment it was faster to ask rather
than getting involved at the level I'd like and you're saying.

> The cost is time.  And we return to; "Open Source doesn't cost less,
> it costs different."

Once you put everything in the bill, it costs less.

> >  If we just vote with our direct contribution. Once I'll finish my
> >  module I'll vote with my non contribution and switch to something
> >  else since if you insist in this wall against wall and calling
> > names, it doesn't look the place where I can make long term
> > investments.

> See now we return to 'take my toys elsewhere subtext'.  If you
> decide to work/contribute to a different project then that's what
> you decide to do.  It would be unfortunate, but it's also a natural
> life cycle behavior thing too.

Exactly. That's why I was asking. I paint future scenario. I could be
wrong... but still I've to make forecasts.

> And excuse you?  I do not believe I called you names in any of the
> emails I sent and am seriously annoyed at your implication that I
> did so.

I was not referring particularly to you.

> How is it still not relevant or true today?  Drupal is more that
> seven years old and still following it's founding principals and
> mission. As it has gained in complexity it has slowed down in
> releases but that is a sign of it's maturity and the larger number
> and nature of contributors.  There are also a lot of new and

Well, as I said things are following a natural path.

> relevant technologies still out there that people are wanting to
> integrate into Drupal.  The web is not yet mature.

Yep but you don't rely on a feature or technology that's not there
already.

> >  As a contrib developer and occasional contributor to drupal code
> > I'm expressing my need to lower that percentage and I feel that
> > my need is in line with the reached maturity of Drupal.
> >  I don't think it is not in line with natural life cycle of any
> >  project getting more mature and I don't think I'm an isolated
> > case.

> It is slowing down, just doesn't seem to be slow enough to address
> your concerns.

If there will be some interests on providing extended security
support at least as a test... I've some hopes that things will calm
enough once D8 will be out.

Larry wrote: «"Looking hard" is a lot of work, both technical and
manpower.   That's the  point I was making.  We can reduce the amount
of work with some careful planning, technological solutions, and/or
money.»
I was wondering when it will be the time of "careful planning"...

BTW I still haven't reached the 20K lines mark. I'm around 8000+ and
the overall stuff is split in 3 "core" modules and some plug-in
modules, but there are dependencies that are there and can't
disappear by magic. So I won't be able to port A, B and C but not D
and see everything work.
It seems I won't be touched by the new D6 DB API... I'm just going to
ignore the changes, I'll ignore D7 API cos I won't be ready and I'll
enjoy D8 API that may take something that may make all that code
more DB agnostic.

Still if Larry estimates a 60% costs on upgrade how can he sustain
that the change in the API was negligible?
Where do you see the costs in upgrading?

-- 
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it