(Switching it to the ee-list)
On May 15, 2013, at 1:32 PM, Fabrice Florin <fflorin(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
We may even want to try using it for remaining Echo
tasks as well, not just for Flow.
I'm against changing things mid-stream. Let's see if Mingle works out for Flow
(which hasn't started), and then we can see about its use elsewhere. Trello has worked
out very well for E3 (as well as being valuable for the early development of Echo), and
I'm not mandating E2 be backporting its use to Page Curation. ;-)
At the end of the day tools like Mingle, Bugzilla, Trello, Gerrit, wiki… are secondary
documentation. Primary documentation is the code (git), followed closely by on-wiki for
people who don't speak the language of code (when you think about it, that is part of
our vision statement).
There is a cost to using secondary documentation, that means it has no value for its own
sake, but only derives its value to the extent it helps in the creation of the primary
forms.
Once a project has reached a certain level of maturity, any unnecessary documentation can
be disposed of. Our process as it stands today doesn't allow us to be free of things
like Gerrit, Bugzilla or wiki, but being able to let go of the unnecessary should be our
goal. I like to think of these tools like writing on a napkin, it's okay at a certain
time in the development process, but I wouldn't want everything we do to require a
napkin doodling before implementation. ;-)
In the case of Mingle/Trello specifically these are closed source (possibly
externally-hosted) software infrastructure pieces that we, as a Foundation, do not want to
have an ongoing dependence on. During project creation and early development, the
deadline-formation and other management tasks these afford are sometimes necessary in
commercial space but do not really exist in all-volunteer open-source efforts, so some
degree of dependence when there aren't open-source solutions becomes a necessary evil
for that time in our project development. However, an ongoing dependence on these tools
would become a wall prohibiting certain members of our community from being able to fully
participate in, and that would be contrary to our commitment.
Take care,
terry