ETA on New Release 7.x-3.1 - Seeking co-maintainer(s) [#2200541]

I'd really like to see a new release for this module. It's been over a year and there hasn't been a release. I've been trying to start a discussion about what constitutes a well maintained module and I think it's reasonable to assume that if there are thousands of sites using it, there would be more releases - #2186377: Highlight projects that follow Best Practices

Node export has 24,299 sites currently reported as using it, there are only 50 open bugs, but this project is requesting a co-maintainers according to the project page. The project page may be out of date, but looking at activity in contrib on d.o it occurred to me that we don't really have a good process for bringing on co-maintainers. Not that there isn't a process to make it happen, but it is all very mechanical.

Ultimately there are always going to be many more users than developers in any successful project. That being said, for a popular module like this, a module maintainer should be able to choose. I've tried to outline #2185511: Highlight User Contributions & What They Can Do Next in Issue Queue how to encourage people to start participating in projects. A project like this one that is actively Seeking co-maintainer(s), should have some way to more actively remind folks in the issue queue that help is being requested.

Now it could be just dealing with the issue queue or building up enough knowledge about the module that they can effectively test a number of outstanding patches. Maybe it's working on the D8 version. Maybe something like documentation or tests. In an actively used module there is always going to be something.

I started off by looking incentives for getting people involved in the issue queue and thought both of these might help - #2138397: Highlight Flattr, Paypal or Whatever Opportunities on Issue Pages & #2177459: Highlight Supporting Organizations in the Issue Queue

Having new ways to alert people in the Drupal community how they might engage is useful. http://www.comaintainer.com was set up to try to gather together information about modules like this one that were looking for support maintaining the code base.

I'm starting this issue in the hopes of having a discussion with this community about what would help more people step up and take on the responsibility of helping to maintain this module.

Does the Migrate module have an effect on how hard it is to maintain this project?

Comments

Comment #1

mgifford

he/him

English

CreditAttribution: mgifford commented 19 February 2014 at 16:29

Issue summary:

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Comment #2

scotwith1t

Birmingham, AL

CreditAttribution: scotwith1t at Inner File Software commented 11 November 2015 at 22:39

It's now been over 3 years since a new release...any news here? The status of the module should probably at least be changed to "no longer maintained" or something...

Comment #3

danielb CreditAttribution: danielb commented 4 March 2016 at 04:52

Hello, I'm back. I really got to the end of my tether with all the modules I was maintaining, how I felt about my interactions with people on this site, and the tools that drupal.org was giving me to maintain the modules. I wasn't working with Drupal in my job, real life was taking up more of my time, and it just became like a bad addiction and it was upsetting me on a daily basis.

My dream with joining an OSS community was that I would put out something little, people would help out and it would get better, ultimately benefiting me in the websites I was making as well. But really what happened is it became a massive support burden, people tracking me down and making demands of me about what their clients needed by a certain deadline, and people unwilling to help themselves. I came into Drupal without any knowledge just like anybody, but some people just want to leech and complain about what was being offered and give nothing back. This module was actually a bit of an exception to that, people were contributing code - you can see there are a few maintainers listed on the front page. However I did have a bit of a problem maintaining software written and contributed by other people that I didn't understand - because I didn't use those features. Most of the modules I wrote were built for 1 or 2 websites, and then I never used them again, but there is never anyone around to fully take the reigns. Having to rewrite the same software you made 8 years ago over and over isn't what I want to do, I'm a creative person I want to go off and make the next thing.

Node Export started off as a patch to Node Clone, I offered it to the guy in his issue queue, and dismissed it - he said it was the simplicity of Node Clone that made it great. That guy was right I think. Ultimately to make something like Node Export work it had to grow into a monster. Plus I have several more monsters just like it.

Taking a rather extended break from Drupal, working with various other technologies, has given me some perspective. In that time several of my modules have magically acquired co-maintainers, something I simply was unable to organise myself when I was actually present, so I'm happy about that. This module received a lot of patches with features and bug fixes, fantastic - I bet if I'd been here to reply to every issue that would not have happened; I'd be slogging through it all myself. Drupal.org seems better now, Drupal seems better now, I have a more relaxed attitude, I think I'll be looking at ways to cut back on how much code I'm responsible for as well.

Regarding the Migrate module - I don't know much about it, other than I know this module is not a great version migration tool so that project is a great one to point people towards when they want that capability. It looks like it's in core for Drupal 8, so perhaps now Drupal is a bit more 'export aware' - and not just Drupal, but module developers. That would ultimately make life easier for everyone, because the nightmare of maintaining this module has been in the complexity of handling a lot of edge cases and functionality that I'd never used in Drupal.