[Opensim-users] they way the project works and to support it....

Tue Dec 23 01:23:32 UTC 2008

I'm going to jump in a tiny bit as I sense frustration from a few folks.

We are trying to provide volunteer support via #opensim, #osgrid & osgrid.org/forums. All who are doing this are volunteers and try mightily to watch out for the interests of the developers whose time we value highly.

Each person that does show up on IRC is helped and *then* is asked to help at least two others or to add at least one paragraph to the wiki. This technique has worked well for us for almost two years now and we encourage additional folks to help us.

Feature requests happen in a couple of ways. One good technique is to chat up the idea and get one of the core developers to back and perhaps mentor the idea. That way a patch might flow more smoothly.

Another technique is to create a project on the forge (forge.opensimulator.org) for a module. Get some folks to test that module and if is truly a good idea, the community will then advocate to get it into core if appropriate.

Personally, I encourage patches and try to keep on top of patches submitted to Mantis and apply if they are simple and dont touch critical parts of the logic. Anything that is complex, I mention to the other core developers and we discuss it, usually on the opensim-dev e-mail list.

Folks are encourage to add regions to OSGrid as they wish to help in the testing and community building of OpenSim. There is no charge adn there are lots of folks to help with setup and lots to learn.

Charles

________________________________
From: Diva Canto <diva at metaverseink.com>
To: opensim-users at lists.berlios.de
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 12:16:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Opensim-users] they way the project works and to support it....

 Ralf,

My $.02 on this, and I don't speak for all the developers.

People who use opensim must have two important things in mind: (1)
OpenSim is not Second Life; and (2) The developers are not Linden Lab.
These two things are subtle but critical. Specifically, to put it
bluntly, "costumer service" is non-existent. Ppl who run OpenSim grids
in an organized manner may have their costumer service for their grids,
but there is no such thing for the OpenSim project itself. The
developers are [almost] all volunteers who contribute their time for a
variety of different personal reasons.

There is no JIRA here, nor is there the concept of "voting for
features" outside core developers, because the core developers always
work on whatever parts they are more interested in working, and not on
some list of features that is produced and prioritized externally.

If someone wants something new implemented, the process is always the
same:

(a) define what you want and discuss it on the -dev mailing list
(b) if you're a programmer, code it yourself and submit a patch via
mantis
(c) if you're not a programmer, convince someone who is to implement it
for you and submit a patch via mantis
(d) all patches on mantis are evaluated by the core developers and
committed if there are no objections

If someone notices an annoying bug that is getting in their way, the
process is also always the same:

(a) define what the bug is in Mantis
(b) if you're a programmer and you enjoy doing these things, try to fix
it yourself and submit a patch
(c) if you're not a programmer, and you want the bug fixed, you need to
describe the problem with as much detail as possible or the developers
won't be able to even reproduce it. Without reproduction, there is no
possible fix.

Ppl who take time to file good and detailed issue reports give an
enormous contribution to the project!

Hope this helps clarify the process-according-to-how-I-interpret-it,
which I'm sure is not the only interpretation :-)
Crista

Ralf Haifisch wrote: 

Dear all,

I need some idea how to work
on this
project…  

My coding is back 20 years, I
did develop
some other skills and I don´t wanna go back.  I did follow sl since end
2004 and was a heavy tester in the time you could email lindens team.
But
although active via JIRA the later days.

I did run the first
internetserver in the
region at that time, and see plenty similarities in things right now.

I´m pretty impressed by the
stuff I see in
opensim (wich I follow for ~ 9 month) and after I did sell my estates
and
almost left SL did decide to put some time into opensim.  Since then, I
did try to promote it (since I think we need “user” and not only tech
and dev
people) and tried to report issues and put up suggestions.  I think
that
the dev´s did a huge job – but the project is groing, so maybe the
development
needs a feedback channel, as well as more tester to maybe specialize on
some
issues. There are now common problems, like people that don´t speak
English or
have no clue how to use the usual ticketing tools. Even having to have
3 or
more different accounts is too much for the typical user – for whom the
system
is created I guess.

I though the way to
collaborate is Mantis,
but I need some advice.

To have 2 examples:
1)      Feature request
– collada 
http://opensimulator.org/mantis/view.php?id=2827 
- last comment was “Please post a note on the opensim-dev
mailing list and ask for feedback. If you cannot write the code for it,
then
you're going to have to convince one of the developers to do it, (or
get
another programmer to do it).  I'm suspending this pending a mailing
list
discussion.”  So i´m even doing a step more
and
get some user feedback before.  The tickets status is closed.  Closed
to me would mean:
-          We will not do
that
-          We have done
that
Or
is mantis
just the wrong tool to put in a structured feature request ?
Or
mantis is
missing a “open for discussion / voting” feature like JIRA ?
2)      Bug report –
covenant
http://opensimulator.org/mantis/view.php?id=2879 – i´m now activily saearching for someone who has a off-world backup of
his 
crashed covenant.
Spoke to some
people who had the same effect.  To me , it´s a serious error if a
object
stored inwolrd is damaged.
Anyway, I can
understand if teravus
can´t check that without the original data.  But: if I can´t get
someone
with a local backup of his
Notecard, the call is
to be
closed.  To me it´s a maybe seriours problem to be closed.  I know:
it´s alpha software.  
Maybe mantis needs
some more states,
like “search for evidence till…”

This are just examples – to
me it´s like a
wall I hit.   I guess mantis is just the wrong tool I use.

Any advice to handle my will
to support
without coding or just consume “as is”  ?

And sorry if anything is
unclear, i´m not a
native English speaker.

Cheers
Ralf

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