[development] Module developers, please do *proper* releases !

[Nancy Wichmann]

For all this dialog, I would love to see much of this effort redirected
towards the quality metrics discussion and solution(s).  It would be much
better to let the potential adopter know whether the developer/maintainer
does quality work rather than focus on what the release is called.  Having
seen high-quality -dev releases and low-quality official releases, I'd
rather see what those who have gone before think about it.

Nancy E. Wichmann, PMP


-----Original Message-----
From: development-bounces at drupal.org
[mailto:development-bounces at drupal.org]On Behalf Of Greg Knaddison - GVS
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 4:48 PM
To: development at drupal.org
Subject: Re: [development] Module developers, please do *proper* releases !

Hi,

I came in a little late to this discussion so pardon me for not replying
inline.

<snip lots of discussion about hiding modules if they have a dev release>

One of the biggest complaints about Drupal.org is that people can't
find modules.  A related problem is that we have many modules which
overlap functionality and create duplicate code (confusing users and
generally being less efficient than having people cooperate).  I see
that as one of the side effects of people not being able to find
modules.

Therefore any proposal to this problem which hides modules is a
non-solution because it makes two of the biggest problems we have even
worse.  You'll note that I do agree this is a problem and that we
should encourage people to make official releases.

Now, I have to disagree with Victor a little bit.  While "it's ready
when it's ready" is a common mantra for open source projects the
Ubuntu team is showing how it is not a necessary condition for good
open source projects.  Without a doubt one fundamental rule of open
source is, however, "scratch your own itch."  I bring that up because
a lot of people are saying "Developers should have to do this, module
maintainers should have to do that."

If you believe someone needs to manage a module differently then
consider contacting the maintainer and saying to them:

"Thank you for this module.  I find it very useful.  I would like to
see a 'stable 1.0 release' of this module.  Is there some way that I
can help you to confirm that it is stable enough that it's ready for
that 1.0 release?  Are there some issues that need testing?"

I think in most cases that the module developer will be so overjoyed
at getting positive feedback and an offer of help (you have to follow
up on the offer, of course) that they will use your help and quickly
get the module to a 1.0 state.  Testing is something that everyone can
help with and will make the developer's life much easier which will
make them more likely to release the 1.0.  If they don't respond,
maybe they have lost interest in the project.  Then you could take it
over and create the all important 1.0 release.

Regards,
Greg

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