RE: [Phpgroupware-developers] Re: Standard source code header and php Documentor

[Reiner Jung]

Am Die, 2003-07-01 um 18.41 schrieb Christian Böttger:
> G'day!
> 
> > I absolutly agree with you. But that was not what i did mean.
> 
> fine
> 
> > 
> > Your company wrote a article in a important german computer 
> > magazine about phpgroupware. 
> 
> No, not my company wrote an article, I did. The magazine in question is the
> iX magazine, www.heise.de/ix
> 
> And it was not an article about phpGW, but it was intended to be an article
> about open source alternatives in the groupware area. phpGW was one of the
> examples, but not the only one.
> 
> > After reading this article, the reader has the feeling that
> > you are the only german contact about phpgroupware. 
> 
> That was surely not intended. I have had quite a number of comments from
> readers not having this impression.
> a) it was not an article about phpGW in special. phpGW was one of the
> examples, amongst others.
> b) the iX policy do normally not allow for an author promoting a single
> project if he's too closely affiliated to that project or product(*).
> Authors are choosen by iX and in this case the agreement was that it should
> be an overview article about different definitions of groupware, general
> problems etc and of course some open source examples. And it was. So the
> normal expectations from iX readers would be that an external persons writes
> something about one or more products/projects, not someone from the project
> team at all. 
> The other general rule is that such an overview article focuses strictly on
> released versions, at least beta versions, not on HEAD branches etc.
> 
> (*) This is different from other magazines as LinuxMagazin or php Magazin,
> just to name some.
> 
> So if a reader concludes from this article that I claim to be the only or
> just any of the project representatives, he would have to conclude that fact
> as well for TUTOS and Kroupware, which in itself would have been a
> contradiction.
> 
> > That did not give you a good standing in the german developer community.
> 
> But it has been really a misunderstanding.
> 
> > Why was it not able to mention that there is a german phpgw website
> > avaiable?
> 
> The main reason was that I had to struggle for each line, as the article was
> well over the agreed limit. It was not meant to hide information. I guess
> there is or could be a link from the main phpGW side to the phpGW.de site.
> 
We from Germany read the article and the article was full from
missunderstandings and faults. As example you write in the article that
phpgw works only together with mysql. You write about modules which are
not finished ore never started to work.

I see some questions from people on the Germany phpgw page. Many
questions come up from the wrong informations from the iX article.
On the fair in Berlin, where we was with phpgw, the same game. People
ask us about things what they read in your article and they are wrong.  

When you write a article and don't know the internals from what about
you write, then this was a chance to contact people which know it. In
the past, many other articles are published, based on the wrong
informations from you. 


> > Why can't you write a short message to the mailinglist, that 
> > you will write such a article?
> 
> Because I had to write the article well ahead of the publishing date and
> under quite immense time pressure. If it had been a special article about
> phpGW alone, that would have been a must. But as phpGW just served as one
> example amongst others, it more or less slipped away. 
> 
> > That's what i mean with "communicate and integrate"!
> 
> It was not meant as a phpGW promotion article, as stated above. And it was
> meant (from the iX) as an outsiders view, not an insider view.

The insider view? Where was it ? And it was a promotion for PB.
What you write in the article: You write in the article what PB will all
change in phpGroupWare. As exapmle the webmailer, and that we support a
lot of mailservers, nut this make problems. Better is to support only
one mailserver like courier, with the PB tool pb.WebMAUI.

The same was with the database modell. You write in the iX article and
and in your project paper, that you need to change the DB modell from
phpgw, that it will wotk togehter with the enterprise DB, SAPDB.


> 
> > 
> > Do you know the motivation of a opensource developer? 
> 
> Oh yes.

OHHHH. On the fair in Hannover, you told us, that this is for PB the
first project togehter with the community.
> 
> > Most developers just code for their ego or for building their perfect toy.
> And now 
> > do you come, and tell us about whats all bad must be fundamentaly changed.
> 
> 
> No, not this way. At least it would run along the line "what would have to
> be changed to 'sell' it for that part of the commercial market that we know
> and operate on".

What do you think, where the other here operate?. In a noncommercial
market.

> 
> > You can say it with nice words, but you must not. This is something about 
> > missing social competence. But that's not important for your employees...
> 
> Again not right, I'm afraid. I have never stated that social competence is
> of no importance. I just stated that the "hard" job skills override this
> sometimes when hiring someone. And even if not, someone new to hire has
> primarily to fit in the exiting team within the company; this kind of social
> skill might well greatly differ from the ability to express one self in a
> foreign language in purely written communication.
> 
> And it works two ways again: one of the very first mails I got from the team
> was in very harsh words accusing me that I don't understand the GPL and was
> asserting a claim (in harsh words again) (which we stated we are willing to
> go along with before (publishing the code we produce)) which was in this
> wording and this situation not coverd by the GPL in a strict sense.
> 
> > How do expect to become accepted?
> 
> I don't think that I can influence your acceptance any more; even if I hope
> this might prove wrong. Mainly I aim at the code being accepted (the useable
> parts of it), once it's ready for submission. I don't really care about the
> acceptance of my person, as long as it doesn't hinder the acceptance of the
> work I supervise.
> 
>  
> > If you do it right, you can motivate the people to work with 
> > you togehter.
> 
> Still we will have to live with the fact that the goals (in terms of
> requirements for some modules e.g.) of our company (and any other) may only
> have a partly overlap with that of the project. I hope we can focus on the
> overlap and not too much on the differences.
> 
> 
> > No need for patches, no bothering discussions, no bothering 
> > emails. 
> 
> That would be ideal, but I have never seen this in any cooperation, may it
> be in FOSS or R&D or commercial.
> 
> > We had already very hard discussions in past on this list, but we 
> > always moved forward to a better solution.
> 
> We hope that this will be the case here as well.
> 
>  
> > I can understand that you need to reach some milestones, to 
> > earn money, and just want to start. But that's not the way it works. You
> need to start
> > slowly, to become faster later. 
> 
> Well, yes. But it's sometimes not a matter of *wanting* to reach a
> milestone, but simply to have to.
> 
> > I'm not against you, i just want to show you, where you did 
> > fail in the past, to integrate into the community.
> 
> Well, I will just have to live with your judgements anyway. Others may judge
> differently.
> 
> > 
> > I hope this was enough proof.
> 
> I did make some points clearer, see above. So it was helpfull.
> 
> > 
> > I'm against such childish discussions. Wo did say when what?? 
> 
> Well, if there are misunderstandings, one has to talk about it.
> 
> > I think we all should know now, what we think the others did 
> > wrong. Just let's looking forward. And try to circumvent the old mistakes.
> 
> ACK.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Christian
> 
> 
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Reiner Jung <address@hidden>