Where Are All The Open Source Developers Gone?
Wednesday, February 24, 2010 9:37 AM
I've been thinking about this topic for a while and had been hesitant to blog about it, but a sentence in [Ben Poole's] recent blog post asking if there is value in using [Domino as a blogging platform] caught my eye...
[the Domino open-source community is somewhat lacking in committers at the moment, beyond each individual’s “pet project”
]
This is starting to become a bit of an issue and, more importantly, a major turn off for the few Lotus Notes/Domino Open Source developers that are still out there. The lack of contributions from other people to projects on openNTF is noticeable and you start to ask yourself what is the point? You write some code, people download it and you don't hear anything back, nobody sends in any code or helps fix a bug they came across, they just use it and don't contribute back. That is not what Open Source is about and it does not surprise me that 'the Domino open-source community is somewhat lacking'.
Lets look at some examples of how it used to be and how it is now, maybe that will help put it into perspective...
Take the OpenNTF Mail Experience project. In the original few releases of this project there was a good 15 names attached to it where different people had helped out and wrote extra features for the template, or had helped test it and find bugs before general release or even, in my own case, had helped rewrite the help screens to give the template a more polished look. Look at the project now it is just one person who takes the latest released mail template from IBM and then adds in the additional features from the original OpenNTF Mail Experience project. There is nobody helping and there is no innovation with new features above and beyond what what in the last release.
Another good example was my own BlogSphere project. In it's heyday there were dozens of people helping out, supplying code, adding new features, fixing bugs but as time went on the number of people helping out dropped off and the only development being done was by myself to add in features that I wanted to add to my own blog. Now that the project is no longer on OpenNTF due to issues trying to get CCLA's and ICLA's for all the past contributors, anybody who does want to contribute can't. ( I do encourage people to post their BlogSphere contributions on their own blog ).
And in comparison if we look at the projects on OpenNTF today there are some great projects, many of which are well above the standards of some of the previous works on OpenNTF, but they all have one contributor, not many. They are, like Ben said, pet projects, and they could all be so much better if people started actively contributing to them.
One NEAR win for an OpenNTF project with multiple contributors was the File Navigator project that won the IBM Lotus Award for best contribution by an individual. This project was written by two IBM staff members from the IBM China labs, Xiao Lei and Jian Kang. They did an excellent job but beyond the first two releases of the project they have not done anything else with it, instead another open-source developer, Rene Wenkelmeyer, took the project over and released updated versions with bug fixes and additional functions. The project is now HIS pet project, nobody else has stepped up to the plate to contribute anything and the original authors are nowhere to be found. This is not how open-source works, the original authors should still be contributing and IBM should be encouraging them as part of their OpenNTF involvement.
A definite LOSS for an OpenNTF project is my own Xtalk project. Did you see it during the Opening General Session at Lotusphere 2010? There was a [picture of it] on screen and they talked about how it was a big win for an external company and how they were able to take it from OpenNTF and embed it into one of their projects. Why is this a loss for OpenNTF, quite simple, the company has not contributed a single thing back to the xTalk project. If they found a bug and fixed it then they have not contributed it back to the project, if they added any features, they have not contributed it back to the project, they didn't even have the decency to contact me when I asked about getting a testimonial from them for the IBM Lotus Awards, nope the ONLY thing that they did was remove the footer from xTalk that contained the project name and link back to OpenNTF.
This isn't about OpenNTF or any of it's policies, ICLA's and CCLA's aside there is nothing that they can do to get people to become involved in existing projects on OpenNTF, it's about you, the people in the Lotus Community. Step up to the plate, look at some of the projects on OpenNTF, download something your interested in, look for bugs and fix them and contribute the code back. Add a new feature or make an existing feature better and contribute the code back. Do something to help an existing project today and when you need help on your cool project idea tomorrow there will be others willing to assist because you assisted them.
Lets not allow the Domino open-source community become a stale resource.