[development] module duplication in Drupal contrib

[Steven Peck]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 9:26 AM, Greg Knaddison - GVS
<Greg at growingventuresolutions.com> wrote:
> I'm mostly just disagreeing so that we can investigate these ideas fully.
>
>
>  On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 12:05 PM, Steven Peck <sepeck at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > A monoculture produces no innovation.
>
>  How about "tends to produce less innovation."
>
>
>  >  Protecting the existing contributed modules which may or may not have
>  >  active maintainers, which may or may not have maintainers who
>  >  cooperate and/or may or may not have maintainers that share a vision
>  >  is not good.
>
>  In the specific case of a project that is no longer maintained we can
>  give maintenance to someone new, right?  I don't see how that's an
>  argument to create (or allow the creation of) a new module.
>

And we already do this in the case of modules known to be unmaintained
because someone reported it.  However the remaining use cases are
still valid.  While we encourage cooperation, we cannot force it
without alienating a lot of contributors.

Some contributors do not play nice with others
Some contributors do not play nice with certain people.
Some contributors have different visions for the end result of their modules
Some contributors have been burned by relying on others contributed
modules for features/functions so are forced to duplicate with their
own work
Some contributors merely contribute back with no intention of changing
their module but still maintain it.

>
>  >  Forbidding innovation or competition produces a protected class of
>  >  elite people who were first to arrive but may not actually be doing
>  >  something now.
>
>  Sure, but we've also got a policy that inactive maintainers get
>  replaced.  So, I don't think your conclusion is entirely accurate.

I do.  New modules may duplicate functionality but in a different way.
 That different way may not be readily appearent to the few who
approve CVS accounts.

>  >  As this is not a new debate, I shall introduce a new one.
>  >  Fire is bad.  Support or refute this statement.
>
>  It's not new, but it is something where there is some disagreement in
>  the community. I'd like to have a discussion about this to see if we
>  can come to a closer agreement.  If you can point to an existing
>  decision on this topic, please do.  The closest I can see to a guiding
>  decision is the last bullet on http://drupal.org/principles

We encourage strongly cooperation and collaboration.  We do not force
it.  Forcing it would certainly alienate any number of contributors
and add significantly to the administrative burden of a few.
http://drupal.org/node/23789

I do not have time to search the dev archives for the previous
discussions and decisians but I believe this is a yearly discussion in
some form or another.  I believe there is also a post on Dries blog
regarding the subject.

>  Thanks for your input.
>
>  Greg

Steven Peck