Where do we go from here?

[randy]

Good Morning Everyone,

I have been thinking long and hard about Team CF Advance.  I am not sure how to revive this group to accomplish the mission of advancing opensource initiatives in CFML.

From our home page: 

"We're a group of CFML developers who believe the CFML community will continue to grow if we embrace the concepts of cooperation and sharing which are the core of Open Source philosophy."

I am coming to you the developers that make up Team CF Advance for help.

If this group is going to succeed it will be a result of Team Work.

What do we do to get back on track?

Where do we go from here?

Discuss Please....

~Randy

[Dan]

Morning Randy,

From my perspective this project never gained traction and has stagnated.No one individual is to blame but rather the entire team has failed.

In my opinion it’s better to be decisive and shut down shop as opposed to linger in Neverland achieving nothing.

My 2c,

Danny.

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[Steve Blades]

I'd like to think that it's not stagnation, but momentary lapses of availability. The holiday season, and immediately following, are difficult times to put in outside effort. I did see quite a bit of movement on the speaker list app recently, and the BlogCFC domains were just transferred over to GoWest (finalized yesterday). I'll be setting up some planning meetings in February on that front as well.

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[Denard Springle]

Hey Guys,

   The API initiatives we had when we first started seemed to work out really well. I don't know if that's simply because you can wrap an API in a day or two generally and people were more apt to commit some time to that than larger projects we've tried to get developers into or not.

   We do need a plan of action moving forward though. A lot of the things we didn't get to last year are still on the table. There's the website, for one, that could use some functionality. Maybe if we break that down into bite size pieces it will inspire some of the CFML developers on the team to jump in?

   What is it that the developers on this team want to do? What kind of projects are people most interested in participating in? What can we commit to as a team and what goals should we be working towards? What would it take to inspire *you* to participate? What are we missing or lacking that keeps you from participating?

   If you're a member of the team and have answers to any of the questions we put forth, please share your thoughts.

   My 2 cents ;)

-- Denny

[Chris Geirman]

I love the idea of breaking it down into bite sized pieces. I for one wouldn't mind helping out with this and that, here and there. But are we suppose to figure out what this and that are? I can only speak for what would work for me... if someone were to put together a list of bite-sized challenges any one of us could pick up and run with, that would be awesome. I'm just not sure where to start nor how to contribute. As any one of us begins to pick up momentum, I'd guess it'll be like most things... the momentum will continue. We just need a kick-start.

What am I interested in? 

- I've promised myself to learn as much about building offline-first hybrid mobile apps, so anything that helps me move in that direction would be awesome.

- solving interesting, well-defined problems. For instance, I wrote a bit of code for Adam Cameron's blog just for the fun of it... because the challenge sounded interesting. I actually learned a lot.

It probably sucks to say, but I think a little hand holding would go along way. Just my 2 cents. I could be wrong.

[daniel fredericks]

Hey all,

I know I am not a huge contributor, but I do pay attention to what is going on. I would agree with Cutter that this team does not need to be shut down, rather, this is a great place to "store" applications that others either don't have time for anymore, or the creators moved to new languages. At least if someone is using something like say blogCFC and they find a bug or have a question on it, they know where to go for help and can assume that someone that is part of this team will at least try to help, or can give them some advice. So, if nothing else the idea of taking ownership and being a warehouse of apps is a great thing.

Website, I can't remember if it is even up at all, but the small piece idea is great...just get something out there so you have a place people can go, even if it is a simple single page html page for now, just so people know what the Team is about and what are some of the apps you house, and how to get involved.

Hand holding, i think that can be done via meetings like Cutter talked about. We all have specific skills, and many of us signed up to help out in those areas, including documentation, design, development. If we get meetings scheduled with people like Cutter to "hand hold" many of us, that will help. Find time in Luis Majano's schedule to teach his way of documenting stuff to learn the rest of us, not only would it help with the team, but we'd be learning ways to do it better for our 9-5 jobs...and same with other meetings, maybe we learn a new way to develop from Cutter or others in his meeting...30 minute meetings, that might go longer with a person or 2  can't be all bad.

Just some thoughts from me...maybe this will bring about some more thoughts.

Team CF Advance will advance more in 2015, in one way or another :)

Dan

NOVACFUG 

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[John M Bliss]

P.S. One way to think of the "small piece" idea is the Agile concept of the "MVP:" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product

As for me, same old song: not enough time. Full-time job, freelance work, family responsibilities, studying for the GMAT...yadda, yadda, yadda. Would hate to see this group shuttered though...

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[Dan]

Looks like Railo is dead … http://blog.adamcameron.me/2015/01/lucee.html

http://lucee.org/

[Denard Springle]

I'm not sure I'd call Railo 'dead', per se. It may very well be, but I wouldn't stick a fork in it just yet.

Lucee is a fork of Railo, so it is Railo - more or less - at the moment. It is also community driven now, which is the reason for the migration. They're giving us what Adobe and Railo (ultimately) could not - a community driven CFML engine. This is good news and means we'll see CFML evolve into a much more usable language in the coming years. \o/

This is open source at it's finest folks... people who love doing what they do for no other purpose than having done it and make the lives and jobs of other developers easier by releasing their work.

-- Denny

[Dan]

> On 29 Jan 2015, at 22:24, Denard Springle <denard....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> , but I wouldn’t stick a fork in it just yet.

Lucee just did :)

[Dan]

This is open source at it's finest folks... people who love doing what they do for no other purpose than having done it and make the lives and jobs of other developers easier by releasing their work. 

-- Denny

“Lucee Association Switzerland” (Rasia, Pixl8, Ortus Solutions and Daemon) all have an angle. Everyone has an angle.

Wasn’t Railo open sourced? 

It appears that for $7188 a year ($599 a month) I can influence the direction of this “open source”project … “get a membership or the Lucee technical advisory committee that reviews new features for Lucee”

http://lucee.org/members/become-a-member.html

This doesn’t really sounds like open source to me..

[Justin Carter]

On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 9:58 AM, Dan <roo...@gmail.com> wrote:

“Lucee Association Switzerland” (Rasia, Pixl8, Ortus Solutions and Daemon) all have an angle. Everyone has an angle.

The angle is supporting the ongoing development of the engine that these businesses rely on ;) 

[Denard Springle]

Right, so... for about the cost of an enterprise license of ACF you can actually have some say in what becomes of the product you're supporting. This versus paying Adobe to do whatever the hell they want. Seems fair.

And open source doesn't mean you can't use it to leverage your business, help pay for development costs, infrastructure, fees, taxes, dues, etc. and, yes, even make a profit. You make a profit on open source every day - we all do... they're called jobs, and without the open source stacks we rely on every day... well... you get the picture. :)

-- Denny

[Dan]

My interpretation of open source was slightly askew, I stand corrected. I’m spending too much time on GitHub :)

What would be nice would be community representation on the Lucee technical advisory committee as opposed to exclusively corporate entities.

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[Charlie Arehart]

Well, that committee membership fee is an annual cost, while a CF license is a one-time purchase.  Just sayin’.  :-)  Granted, there are paid CF upgrades offered every couple of years.

But even so, 2 years of such a Lucee committee membership (7188) would easily buy both a single CF Enterprise license (8499) and an upgrade (4249) a couple years later.

Still, I see your point about a feeling of having more control. And no question if one has many CF licenses that would change the equation above! :-) And of course one need not pay at all.

Interesting times in the CFML world. Grab your popcorn. :-)

/charlie

 

From: team-cf...@googlegroups.com [mailto:team-cf...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Denard Springle
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 7:31 PM
To: team-cf...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: RIP railo

 

Right, so... for about the cost of an enterprise license of ACF you can actually have some say in what becomes of the product you're supporting. This versus paying Adobe to do whatever the hell they want. Seems fair.

<snip>

 

[Mike Brunt]

Yes interesting times indeed, the Java world, a greatly expanding universe.

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[Cameron Childress]

On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 7:31 PM, Denard Springle wrote:

Right, so... for about the cost of an enterprise license of ACF you can actually have some say in what becomes of the product you're supporting. This versus paying Adobe to do whatever the hell they want. Seems fair.

The thing 90% of people probably care most about:

Railo: Free to Use

Lucee: Free to Use

The thing that 10% of people care about:

Railo: Influence not available

Lucee: Influence available

Both are good things.

-Cameron

 

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[Denard Springle]

I suppose it's time to revive this old discussion... reading the first few posts and then realizing that was in January of this year means a few things...

1. We are no farther than we were in Jan of this year, with anything.

2. We are lingering around and, sadly, becoming a code graveyard.

3. It was not a momentary lapse of outside effort... it was a total lack of outside effort.

4. No single member is to blame, though I would accept the lion's share if I had to, but this is truly a failure of the CFML community to come together as a team and work together to make open source CFML a force to be reckoned with.

5. Nobody seems to be able to come up with a good explanation as to why #4 above is true.

The recent discussion about CFEclipse prompted me to take one last stab and see what the members of the community want to do. We have three options really... 

1. Dissolve TCFA completely and try to find new homes for any applications worthy of continued support

2. Remain a code graveyard so, at least, unsupported/unmaintained CFML code has a place to rest (and be found, when needed, perhaps)

3. Devote the time and attention to open source CFML development as we originally intended

I don't think #3 is ever going to happen, if we're honest with ourselves - I would give it the ole college try one more time for the hell of it, but I'd have to see some pretty decent movement from this group before I'd join in that effort. 

So, for me, that leaves options 1 and 2.

Please discuss...

-- Denny

[Cameron Childress]

On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 11:48 PM, Denard Springle wrote:

2. Remain a code graveyard so, at least, unsupported/unmaintained CFML code has a place to rest (and be found, when needed, perhaps)

Perhaps surprisingly - I actually kinda like this option and here is why...

Several times in the past there have been efforts to create something like TCFA and several times it's failed. You guys set the bar very high when you started out. You had very high hopes and your intentions were great but it was difficult to fully execute that vision. The people involved simply don't have the time. Trying the same thing over and over, expecting a different result - the definition of insanity?

But still, there is a need to do something with CF projects when their maintainers move on. If TCFA folds then someone else is going to just try to do the same thing in their own way and the cycle will repeat into infinity and insanity.

I would suggest that TCFA can adjust it's mission so that it becomes a shepherd for these projects and less of a maintainer. This probably means establishing status labels for projects under the TCFA umbrella and a process for initial assignment of projects to those status. It also probably means defining rules for maintaining qualifications under each status.

I haven't searched for anything like this sort of system Apache foundation or someone else may classify things and we could use that as a model but without looking for that I would think of something like this:

Active Development

Means one or more maintainer currently actively maintaining the project. Maintainer agrees to generally respond to issues and pull requests. A basic roadmap of features is required.

Active Maintenance

Means one or more maintainer currently actively maintaining the project. Maintainer agrees to generally respond to issues and pull requests but doesn't promise "support" or future feature development.

Dormant Project

Means there is no active maintainer of the project. The code is housed at GitHub and TCFA is seeking a maintainer to volunteer.

TCFA could even index outside projects using these statuses. Framework One could be listed as an outside project currently classified as "Active Development" as an example.

I also think that generally, for TCFA to take a project, it needs to be moved to and housed at GitHub and use GitHub pages and not be sitting on an outside server. I would say the same even for the main TCFA website. This all makes things very durable in case anyone needs to bow out at any time. 

-Cameron

[Charlie Arehart]

+1 to all that Cam says.

And if anyone may be wondering about specific folks and why they are not more involved, I’ll add that for myself, beyond the “no time” problem Cam offers, I’m also just not using any of the projects, so have no motivation to support them.

Also, for me personally, I just don’t do professional development anymore—I just do server troubleshooting, the past several years, and only modest coding of apps on my own server, or utilities—so I wouldn’t be a very good candidate to assist even if I wanted to, but of course I could do at least SOMETHING if it was for a project I used and wanted to support.

To the whole question of “lack of participation be folks here”, I’d also and finally that I myself joined the team simply to observe what was happening with the team and community. Perhaps that was so for others.

Heck, maybe we need clear member labels somewhere, as you may find, Denny, that others also only ever planned to be “observers” for whatever reason. If you knew that, perhaps it would help to show that there really were only very few folks who even planned to “get involved” actively).

And of course, some will have moved on from CF, and only remain on the group either out of a softspot for CF (I remain on a list for the technology I used before CF, 18 years ago), or just simply because they forgot to unsubscribe and perhaps all the emails go into a folder that they never read.

I know it’s frustrating to you, Denny, and to others with high hopes for “the team”. I think Cam’s proposal is a good one, and his very presence and recent entry is a sign that even if the team doesn’t evolve to all that was hoped, it has a place even as it is. That’s one opinion, anyway.

/charlie

[Chris Geirman]

Charlie makes good points. Cam too. I'd like to echo what they've so eloquently stated already. I too joined mostly as an observer, though I did also hope to get involved to some extent. I just never really knew how. When I spoke up, I was told... "just do it" or something to that effect. I agree with that edict as well for the most part, but it was off putting and it just wasn't very clear to me "how" to "just do it". And not having a lot of free time to figure it out and not being an active user of any of the projects, I simply didn't "do it". Instead, I did other things... like build things in react-native, anguarjs, meteor, etc. 

I do think there's value in at least having a place where all code can go to die and maybe someday be resurrected. 

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[Mike G]

I too have the same  issues, no time, meager direction and I don't use the projects that are needing attention.  If there ever came a time where I needed one of them, then I would download, tweak and push changes back.  I do that with other GitHub efforts and see no reason why I would not do the same here..

M

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[Denard Springle]

Hey Folks,

   Thank you for your feedback, and my apologies if anyone took my tone as a personal accusation... as I said, if anyone is to blame for any of this not working out as intended, it would be me. So, I wasn't pointing fingers so much as expressing my frustration with my own failure and being honest about where the TCFA vision lay in the grand scheme of things. :)

   I also agree with what Cameron and others have recommended... if nothing else we can retool our vision to be shepherds of wayward projects in hopes of either a) finding a need and time to further the project or b) housing the project in one repository favorable to being found by folks who may need the projects further down the road.

   As for me, personally, I do have some frustration and angst surrounding this adventure, but most of that frustration is with myself and my inability to pool the resources I hoped I could to compete against a plethora of open source code in other technologies. My vision was grand... too grand it seems... and my execution on that vision was poor, despite best efforts. Again, the blame comfortably sits at my feet. :)

   To answer some of the comments you guys made... I (and other team leaders) understood the ratio of 'observer' to 'active participant' was high... we (or at least I) knew that going in. I failed to understand exactly how high that ratio really was, but it edged out around 10-15 active out of more than 200 participants. And yes, I knew that some folks were specifically here as observers  and I expressed on a number of occasions that their voices still have merit and their presence was always more than welcomed. I didn't mean to exclude all those who have participated in one way or another in my earlier post - we've had many good conversations about CF and the future of open source here and several members of the community put in the time and effort to help organize TCFA. Those individuals still retain my deepest gratitude.

   As for direction... unfortunately none of the team leaders were in a position to hand-hold other team members. That is unfortunate and I wish I, or someone on the team, had that kind of time. We tried to point to good resources of that kind of information, Sean especially linked to several good 'welcome to open source' kind of resources in hopes that members would read and tinker and figure it out for themselves... that was the best we could do given time constraints. In hindsight I probably could have made time to do more, but I was already spending gobs of time just trying to organize the group around the original vision and, frankly, hoped someone else could help to fill that need. 

   Anyway, we could talk for hours about post-mortem and why this or that didn't work out... doesn't change where we are now and what we can do moving forward. I continue to release any open source code or contributions primarily through the TCFA banner and will continue to do so. Anyone else is welcome to do the same. And, as most of you can probably guess... I have no room to talk about open source these days... I've had little real impact on the state of open source in CFML for months. 

   As for taking on projects... I am comfortable being a home for wayward projects. If that's the only contribution to the community to come out of all this... that's still something and does serve a purpose. I like what Cam has laid out here and will set aside some time to look at how best to retool the vision and the repository, et al, to implement this. Thank you for being so descriptive there Cam... saves me a lot of time thinking about it ;) And, frankly, if anyone has OSS projects or project ideas, we could still field them here and see if we can get some active contributors together to help out.

   On the bright side... this little adventure really taught me a lot and despite my frustrated tone... I really enjoyed the conversations and the energy that the group has had. I'm sorry my vision was so grand... I do recall saying it was lofty in the beginning lol... I guess that was accurate ;) All said and done I'd still do it again given the chance not to ;) 

-- Denny

[Charlie Arehart]

Good to hear your thoughts, and your changing mood. :-)

And especially good to see among your final sentences that you said, “really enjoyed the conversations and the energy that the group has had.” It would have been easy to say “that the group had”, which would imply a feeling of defeat. ;-} Like you say, see things for what they are, and let the group be what it can be.

And praise the providence of someone like Cam coming along (who I’ve seen be a white knight of energy to organize many things over the years). You just never know when folks like him will come along to spur on either some one thing or perhaps someday to take on more. Just “being” as a group leaves open that possibility. :-)

 

/charlie

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[abhishek shrivastava]

Hello Everyone,

When i joined this group i thought i would be contributing a lot and we will have a solid lib of apps / utilities in CF but i am sorry i could not do it.

Few options i could think of ...

1. We project TeamCF as a developer community which can not only work on Open Source CFML projects but also can work as workforce for CFML projects, as i understand that there are companies / people who seek out for good CF developers to work on their requirements. We can leaverage the team's expertise to provide the solutions for industry needs, this will actually get revenue to team and a motivation to keep working on opensource projects.

2. We can look into projects which are written in other languages and provide CF solution.

3. We not just work as a dev community but also provide learning to new developers, we can host our own learning community, I have been thinking of CF (FW1) + Angular + Bootstrap training as a start. Other areas could be different other frameworks used in CF, integration with other technologies like .NET and JAVA. CF only solutions for new age technologies like IOT.

4. We meet once in a fortnight, we can use google hangouts or other platform to discuss the progress, roadmap, strategies etc.

Over all i feel that we should not stop at this moment. 

Abhishek

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