[Zope-dev] Re: Fishbowl?

Paul Everitt paul@zope.com
Fri, 30 Nov 2001 10:53:56 -0500


Chris Withers wrote:

> Paul Everitt wrote:
> 
>>Moral: there's a difference between correct and right.  While we might
>>have good reasons for inattention, it will surely lead to an
>>unsatisfying conclusion.  Thus, ZC needs to be smaller part of a larger
>>Zope, IMO, and do this by spending more time helping the community take
>>over parts of Zope and the Zope world.
>>
> 
> Well, this is a purpose, which is good.
> 
> I'd say sorting out the Fishbowl would be a good action to start with.


You're going to love the irony on this, but there's a proposal in the 
fishbowl on this:

   http://dev.zope.org/Wikis/DevSite/Proposals/FishbowlManageability

...and of course, nobody knows the proposal is there.


> Now, I see options for this:
> 
> 1. We can build something better. I can list requirements but that's not relevent here. However, this will take serious
> effort (it's a hard problem...) and as we know from bitter experience, things that need serious effort either don't
> happen, take far too long to happen or happen badly ;-)


Yep.  I'm in favor of some very small, very incremental steps.

 
> 2. We could by a tool that does this kind of thing. Where would we get such a beast from? how much would it cost/ who
> would fit the bill?


...and what would be the transition costs?


> 3. We could use another open source tool. Bugzilla springs to mind. Yes, it's not Zope, or even python, but it does
> work, certainly better than anything we, as a community, have right now or could build in the time it would take to
> install and set up.


Hmm, I don't really see Bugzilla and the Fishbowl overlapping.  Perhaps 
with the Collector, though.  However, I don't think the real issues 
involved are related to choice of tool.

It's been mentioning that ZC doesn't pay attention, so proposals go in 
and nothing happens.  Bugzilla won't fix that problem.  I'll add that 
the community doesn't always pay good enough attention.  Sure, people 
will say "when will we have versioning" or "when will we have web 
services".  We go off, make a proposal, and email zope-dev.  No feedback 
-- I take that back, each has received one response, whether by wiki 
comment, mailing list response, or private response.

This isn't a good track record.  Brian produced 35 pages worth of 
almost-flawless docs on web services to go with his code.  But no 
comments.  And he's doing this on his own time.  So let's remember that 
this is a two-way street.

IMO, Bugzilla won't fix these kinds of problems.  I think the first step 
is to refine what we have while finding better ways to work together.


--Paul