[Featureserver] Shifting Development Services

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 07:12:49PM +0000, Peter Robins wrote:
> Curiously enough, I was about to post a question about how I should
> submit changes to featureserver. I posted some bug fixes in November
> to this list, but have had no response at all. In one way I'm not that
> fussed as I have a system that works for my needs, but I'm wondering
> why I bother taking the time to contribute if those contributions are
> ignored!

Generally speaking:
 1. These are small projects. There isn't a lot of time that any committer
    has, and any work that is done on these projects, for me personally,
    is an alternative to spending time with my wife and kids. Sometimes,
    they win :)
 2. Without a tracker -- something people have been complaining about for
    years, I know -- patches get lost in the noise of the mailing list.

It is possible that moving to OSGeo doesn't help this at all. My hope
is that having a public ticket tracker will allow patches to be managed 
so that the limited developer time can be invested in applying existing
patches, but it's true that these projects will not magically have more
committer resources due to a move.

The best solution, if something you want isn't getting done is to first
review if your emails have enough information, then to nag. Personally,
your DBM patch mentioned in november is confusing to me, and more context
without me having to dig in the code would have made it more likely
to happen, but I realize it's hard to movitate to that when no one
answers. This can be followed up by nagging; generally, if it's been
more than a week with no response on the mailing list, I think that a
simple "Did anyone see this and have thoughts on these patches?" would 
be appropriate.

We're human. We make mistakes and miss things. Technology can help with
it to some extent, and human interaction can as well.

Best Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
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