[Rt-devel] Contributing to RT.

[Todd Chapman]

Jesse,

Thank you for RT. You have given the open source community
something of value. I wanted to say that up front, so that
if you take what I say below as criticism you will know that
what I say is with the understanding that you gave when you
didn't have to and you don't owe anything to the RT community.

Being that I am developing a not insignificant add-on for RT
I may be more sensitive than most to the problems I see. It
feels that the community involvement in the direction and
improvement of RT is more limited than it needs to be.

The feedback to submitted bugs and patches has been sporadic.
Especially in the case of patches I have submitted code and
get no sense of when it will be reviewed and possibly included
in RT. With every patch or improvement I contemplate writing
for RT I hesitate because I get the sinking feeling that
my patch will disappear into a black hole. By extension I am
concerned that others may feel discouraged too. That I can't
know but I hope it is not true.

I am open to the possibility that my code sucks or that I find
myself in this situation because of lack of good communication
on my part. Or perhaps because my code almost always comes
without tests.

I am also open to the possibility that RT simply doesn't evolve
at the rate that I would like. Best Practical (BP) does have
customers to support so maybe controlling the pace of evolution
is desired.

Yes, I realize that BP has limited resources and paying customers
come first. Perhaps this is the sole reason for the problems
I see and unavoidable. Or maybe it is avoidable and with
discussion we could improve the situation.

This has been difficult to write because I am asking for something
from someone that doesn't have to give anything. I also risk
pissing off the person who is the gatekeeper to contributing to
RT, but I take the risk anyway Jesse because I have not seen
you act unreasonably.

Maintaining the community around any open source project must surely
be one of the most difficult aspects of such an undertaking and
I don't envy you for it.  However you respond, I appreciate what
you have given us.

Respectfully,

-Todd