Dear all,
we have something of an issue with current development which we need to try and resolve.
Quite simply, the only person really doing any coding work on v9 currently is Ian (i.e. pushing forward rather than bug fixing), aided and abetted by a small dedicated group doing testing and verification.
RC1 is on the bubble, but at the minute without Ians work, pretty well nothing would happen, and we really need to try and find a way to get him more help as a matter or urgency.
Ian has mentioned the lack of core developers before, and we really need to address this quite urgently.
A few of the options I can see.......
1. Encourage core developers from user base
How do we get more people involved in this ? We lost a lot of people over the years as the distro stagnated. I am sure we will pick up more, particularly if we get v9 out and raise interest in it, but this isn't going to happen over night.
2. Pay for additional developers
The first problem is one of trust I guess. Second is the time it will take to get them up to speed (I have no idea on this) and thirdly is the cost (I have no idea on this either). We have some money, but not a fortune. What needs doing, how much would it cost ?
Open to any suggestions on this.
3. Any other bright ideas ?
Ultimately, if users want to see their distro thrive and survive they have got to roll their sleeves up and muck in a bit. Leaving it all to 'someone else' will not get the job done.
I am sure there are many capable developers out there. Even a handful would make a big difference.
On top of core devs we need people for a myriad of other easier tasks. Everyone is capable of doing something, and if you can't we can teach you
Just drop me a line.....
Lastly, there is the problem of communicating all of this to users.
In simple terms there are 20-40,000 installs out there, but only around a thousand people or so on the mailing lists - I believe updates/announce has the most subscribers.
The forums often are only used by problem seekers so only used infrequently by the majority, and as we cannot mail any of the registered users there, it's not very effective when you need to communicate this type of thing.
Currently you do not have to do anything to get a copy of Koozali SME and I believe we should be looking at asking users to register in some way when they either download or install so we can keep in communication with them, and appeal more widely to them.
Even if it isn't mandatory, they should ALWAYS only get a copy via a 'voluntary' registration / ask for donation page.
If you look about, more and more projects are using similar systems.
I note that even Ubuntu now asks for a donation before downloading from main site so I don't think we should be scared of doing this sort of thing.
Whatever we do, we have to do SOMETHING to try and change things.
Ian needs and deserves some help.
B. Rgds
John Crisp
President
Koozali Foundation
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