[vtk-developers] Driving away your existing developers

[David Cole]

> If I were kitware, I’d be concerned that developers like myself - who
> kitware couldn’t care less about - are unable to contribute to the
> project, and as we leave, the next generation of interns and students
> are not being encouraged to join.
> ...
> Normally, I’d accept that I’m just a whiner and tell me to shut up.
> But I/We really made an effort to get help with the transfer function
> stuff and the evidence is that nobody cares - so my whining is
> justified.
> ...
> Kitware does do a great job of moving the project forward - it’s a
> shame that outsiders can’t.


This is a "hard to hear," but very valuable perspective from a
long-time contributor to VTK and ParaView. Thanks, John, for expressing
your opinion publicly, and clearly.

Another way to phrase part of this discussion might be : "What would
happen to these projects if Kitware abandoned them? How would the
communities then re-organize...?"

I've tried to stay active in CMake, VTK and ITK since leaving Kitware
about 20 months ago, but it's been difficult to stay on top of it all.
As John points out, for folks outside of Kitware, contributing is more
of a "part time" endeavor that we have to squeeze in when we can. I'll
continue to do so, because we use CMake, VTK and ITK to build our
software, and I like to give back at least a little.

John's topic in VTK is only one out of *126* open topics awaiting
approval (or other dispensation) in gerrit, the oldest dating all the 
way back to
September *2012*, a full two years ago.

http://review.source.kitware.com/#/q/entity:topic%20status:open%20project:VTK,n,z

In the other thread, about desired "workflow" and "tools," I expressed
the desire to see reviewers assigned automatically when topics are
submitted. That would help, but not totally solve the problem of an
accumulating backlog of topics.

Part of our workflow should be looking at the oldest topics in the
queue, and deciding to abandon them at a certain point. After all, how
many of the topics from more than 3 months ago would still merge
successfully today even if approved...?

An old topic / changeset with no reviewers should be a red flag that
something's lacking in "the process."

Unanswered emails on the list, unacknowledged bugs in the bug tracker,
and unreviewed topics/changesets in gerrit are all issues that ought to
be addressed to prevent driving existing people away and to help new
contributors feel welcomed on a project.


David C.