[Phpgroupware-developers] Is there a way forward?

[Dave Hall]

Hi all,

It is now time for me to speak my mind.  I feel the project is on the
verge of collapse.  I am not getting into who said to who and when it
was said, we have had enough of that recently.  I also don't claim to
have all the answers, I am just throwing my loose change around in some
hope that things can be salvaged.

The fighting over nothing and back room squabbling has to stop, it does
nothing but turn people off the project.  I am not getting into what
happened in the past, but I think we all know that some people have said
/ done something which have been insensitive, stupid or just down right
offensive.

I am also aware of a group of people (who should have enough guts to
identify themselves publicly), who are working on a fork.  In my mind a
fork will not solve many of the problems the project is currently
experiencing, it just moves them to another project.  What will happen
when the fork has issues? another fork? pretty soon we have 10
incompatiable children of phpgw, and who benefits from that? maybe a few
people's egos.  I will leave the forkers to either make an announcement
or publicly distance themselves from the fork.

As for moving forward, this is what I propose.

Project Structure
We have an agreement on the strucuture of the project in place, but
implementation has been less than satisfactory so far.  The agreement
has been in place for months, it is time we do it.

Elections
They be held as we agreed.  People should nominate themselves or others
on this list.  Now for those of you who did not understand the previous
thread on this issue, this is how eligibility will work.  Anyone can
nominate, but for that nomination to be considered valid, then they
*must* meet the requirements spelt out in the restructure document,
including their copyright assignment being received by the FSF by close
of business Friday 5 September 2003.  Elections will take place between
9 and 15 September 2003 (times are 0000UTC).  Only those who meet the
eligibility criteria will be given given access to vote.

I would also propose that anyone who actively involved in a fork is not
acting in the best interests of the project and so should not be
eligible to nominate/vote

Coordination Team
Once formed the new coordination team should prioritise the following tasks:
* Encouraging new contributors to join the project
* Draft a project charter based on the restructure document, for public
discussion and acceptance
* A full code audit to check licensing and copyrigt and headers -
anything not 100% ok should be dropped instantly

0.9.16 Release
I am sick of people asking when will 16 be out.  Lets get this thing out
the door.  The proposed release schedule should stand, unless someone
has a very strong case for delaying it.  I think the longer it takes the
more people lose faith in the project.  I also propose that we make a
commitment to 1 bug fix release in around 3months, and HEAD becoming
0.9.18 before Christmas.

Over to the masses for comments/flames etc :)

Cheers

Dave

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