Re: [xwiki-devs] [Proposal] XWiki Core

On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 10:37 AM, vincent(a)massol.net <vincent(a)massol.net> wrote: I agree with Guillaume, the Sandbox is not motivating, and create for those who do not catch with the rules a nice place to stay. I agree that it will push for moving to a better repository, but if it slow down the initial contribution, there will be nothing to move. Why not keeping the first naming, even if the rules will differ: xwiki-extensions and xwiki-contrib (or xwiki-contrib-extensions if you prefer) ? Well, there are several kind of extension, and their level of risk are very different. For example, a mostly Javascript base extension, with a bit of XWiki Macro, could really be stable since its version 1.0, not having much compatibility issue over time, and therefore, works on the latest versions, being a nice helper, all this without any maintenance work. Let take the ShowHide Macro or the LiveValidation Macros, both are now generally following the best practice, works on latest versions, but I doubt I will have to make any new release of them in the near future. I do not think we can really measure the maintenance quality of an extension with the frequency of its release. I also think that simple extension could be really well done while being only release as simple XAR, putting the contribution to the level of the advance user, not necessarily programmers. So, I am afraid that the separation between first class extension and other ones is more subtil than you would like it to be. What you describe is well adapted to large extension, like meeting applications, filemanager, etc... It sounds to me a bit like Apple policies for its app store... Do we really want to keep that level of control ? Is it really fair ?. If you look at other software that provide extensions, most of them as not follow that way, but they have left the users vote and put their most useful and preferred extensions at the top of the results. I am not sure we are making the good choice by creating that committee. I understand that you want a way to keep the quality of good extensions. Wouldn't this be naturally done if the extension has a maintainer (that self design himself) and a way for user to express their happiness about extensions ? I am just afraid by more policies (which is opposite to the issues you try to solve), and I am pleading for more natural selection. Also, aren't we mixing two different aspects of the problem: 1) repositories, and developper tools for extensions 2) publishing extension in the XWiki "central" repository For 1), we can provide helps, keeping our actual very open policies For 2), we can have some more strict rules, since it does not prevent anyone to provide their extension from any external repository. Maybe we could make something in the line of Ubuntu packages, and their Personal Package Repositories. I mean: - provide tools for developers (and simple users) to create good extensions without annoying them with policies - provide way to publish those extension into our maven repository, and require for this purpose that the project follow some rules. We may even provide two different maven repos, one for first grade and one for others. I do not think separating first grade and other extensions are useful for the sources repositories. The sources could be anywhere, in our github contrib, or anywhere else. Of course, only well managed project, which imply well managed sources has a chance to be accepted in the first grade extension maven repository. This repository will be only recommandation, but we will never imply that an extension should be in that repository to be good. This would allow IMO a better and more acceptable control. Moreover, again like what debian/ubuntu, the users of XWiki will be able to decide from which repositories they accept to pull extension from. IMO, in that context, the rules and voting for releasing an extension into the first grade repository could be managed as a committers vote. Providing ratings on extension will help committers make good proposals and decisions. Moreover, anyone as the right to make a non binding vote, and therefore help in the decision process. So, with this approach, we do not have to add more complexity to the management of the project. WDYT ? -- Denis Gervalle SOFTEC sa - CEO