[development] Reviewing patches and making decisions

[Ryan Cross]

umm.... HERE! HERE!

On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 1:59 AM, Chris Johnson <cxjohnson at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> This has always been the assumption -- that there is more development
> in the newest version than in older versions.  But it has always just
> been an assumption without proof -- and even I feel it was probably
> true most of the time, or in the past.
>

I bet there could be some of those keen on statistics could easily write a
few queries to determine which is the case. It would be important to also
consider contrib too.


>
> If one only measures core development, than of course it's true,
> simply because past core releases are essentially frozen except
> security fixes.
>
> But right now, I would bet far more effort is being spent on Drupal 6
> development than on Drupal 7 development.  And it's part of this
> topic's problem.
>
> Issues and patches are piling up in the Drupal 6 issue queues, but the
> push is to look at Drupal 7 development.
>
> For example, I'm spending 100% of my effort to build Drupal 6
> websites.  I find a bunch of bugs in D6.  I write issues and post
> patches.  My motivation to check for the same problem in D7 and then
> develop a D7 patch, is going to be considerably less than my
> motivation for D6.  I might not even be able to do that, if the D7
> code is not sufficiently ready or stable.  If I'm already waiting for
> patches to be applied to D6 modules, I'm not going to be interested in
> waiting even longer to have them applied to D7 and then get backported
> to D6.  I need the fix yesterday, not next year.


I understand the rationale for expecting all patches to be addressed in head
and then back ported. However, sometimes I wonder whether it would be also
effective to have the patches ported forward. This *is* one point of having
a version stated as maintained. It could be argued it is less efficient, but
if it helps people work more I would argue it is a more effective approach
in some areas.


>
> Really it's all about every member of the community having a different
> agenda, and everyone is negotiating with the community to get as much
> support for their own agenda as possible.  Some people have more
> influence than others or more power than others in these negotiations
> (the Drupal community is much like the rest of life in this regard,
> after all).
>
> The question is whether the majority should continue to be facilitate
> the agenda of the minority, or if the majority should stand up, notice
> that it is the majority, and push more strongly for what they want.


I think this is a strong point, and it also reflects the changing nature of
the Drupal community.
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