Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to Summary of the Sloan - Berklee dotLRN meeting

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Posted by Don Baccus on
Are there any plans to, say, actively coordinate this work with the development efforts of the OpenACS community? Or are you folks going to continue to plug along in the "we'll gift you when it's done" mode?

Just the way you state the relationship

We want to keep the OpenACS community informed
and
We welcome input and collaboration from the OpenACS community.
indicates that your mindset is that you're not part of the OpenACS community. This feels a lot like the old aD days, except for the minor difference that without actively coordinating with the community minor issues like "hey, the core's changed and our new stuff doesn't run with it" might crop up.

We've got a lot of aggressive plans, and while it isn't clear what the timeframe for implementation is, there's going to be overlap.

And I plan to try to work to set down some standards for how to use the basic architectural components like the object system. As far as permissions go, at minimum we will want to come up with best practices, so to speak.

And I want new development to use the form builder whenever possible and am working on a new tool that will help simplify its use (using it means forms will be templatable).

Open Force, while criticized by the community for keeping things under wraps, did at least communicate with me - the OpenACS project leader - and did solicit opinions from a few others.

I really dislike the standoffish approach that was taken with dotLRN development. I think that this newly announced effort is a great opportunity to increase cooperative efforts. You already have two groups - Sloan and Berklee - cooperating, why isn't the rest of the community invited?

And, no, this isn't about Don being on a power trip. During the last several months several of our best developers have hounded me over the closed nature of the original dotLRN effort. I forsee myself being hounded over and over again if this is the model that's followed in the future.