New Mapbender contributors

[Arnulf Christl]

Hello Peter, Thomas,
welcome to the team.

Until now you have contributed indirectly by hacking the Wiki and 
throwing the on and off pieces of code over the fence. But I remember 
that you both showed interest in joining the core development and 
eventually getting commit access to the source code repository. As we 
know you for quite some time now this would basically a formality, we'll 
do that via the dev list.

But for us it would be interesting to understand what you need to get 
going. Our problem is that we try to provide all information that is 
necessary for the interested developer to get involved but being inside 
makes it difficult to look at what is needed from the outside.

So we would like to know whether it is transparent to you how decisions 
are made regarding the development, how new versions are planned and 
what basic guidelines apply to contributing development to the Mapbender 
project.

This kind of information might also of interest to the incubation 
committee that (who, which?!) currently tries to develop a method and 
guidelines on how to run a project. Another open question is how to 
understand or "judge" whether a project is healthy or not (not only 
legally regarding the code but also from the community aspects). So all 
input from your side is welcome. If you are lazy (and as good developers 
you should be...) or shy (will probably not apply :-) you can also give 
feedback in German or offlist - then I will route the key issues to 
whichever place makes sense.

Thanx & have a nice weekend,
Arnulf.