Topic: Is Andy Peatling still fit to lead the BuddyPress project? –Time to re-define the “core development

Is Andy Peatling still fit to lead the BuddyPress project? –Time to re-define the “core development

Erlend Sogge Heggen
Participant

@sadr

2 years, 5 months ago

I have no intention of trolling, please hear me out.

Let me start by addressing @apeatling directly. BuddyPress 1.2 provided my project with a rich enough featureset that we could port our entire, terribly fragmented site into one all-encompassing platform, namely WordPress+BuddyPress. In spite of some inconvenient workarounds, dubious filler plugins and resource overloads, BuddyPress has no doubt transformed our site for the better when SEO, community participation and overall structure is concerned.

Yet now, as an invested user of BuddyPress, I am deeply concerned with the leadership of this project. Back in the day, Andy was the undisputed driving force of this project. He pointed towards the end goal and the community humped along in his path like the noisy but passably functional piece of machinery that it is. I for one don’t see that direction any longer. Others have picked up the reins, but I’m not getting the sense of a coherent development.

Andy’s employment with Automattic has me confused. Is BuddyPress development still in his job description?

I think the BuddyPress “core development team” needs to be re-defined and re-purposed.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

Boone Gorges
Keymaster

@boonebgorges

2 years, 5 months ago

Andy’s work at Automattic has taken him away from BP work for the most part. He is still around and paying attention, but is not really active in BP development anymore. (He remains, of course, the beloved founding developer of the project, and is more than welcome to jump back in whenever he feels like doing so.)

There was a period during the middle part of 2010 when Andy was no longer working on the project, and the majority of the work was done by JJJ. During that time, development slowed overall (there is only so much one committing dev can do). When Paul Gibbs and I were brought aboard in October, development increased its speed rapidly. If it does not seem that way, it’s because the 1.3 milestone had an enormous backlog of tickets. But the pace of commits over the last few months seems to be higher than anytime since 1.2 was released. http://trac.buddypress.org/timeline?from=12/20/10&daysback=60&authors=&changeset=on&update=Update

The immediate goal of the core team is to get 1.3 (and its many improvements, many of which have been sitting in the trunk many, many months) out the door in the first part of 2011.

If you have concerns or questions about the direction of BP development, I urge you to jump into trac.buddypress.org and especially the weekly IRC development chats, where the general decisions about the direction of development are made. Details about those dev chats are posted on http://bpdevel.wordpress.com.

Andy Peatling
Keymaster

@apeatling

2 years, 5 months ago

You are in safe hands with Boone, JJJ, and Paul. They’re working great together and the future of the project is bright. That’s the beauty of open source, the project can continue to thrive even when members of the development team move on.

kenwalker
Participant

@kenwalker

2 years, 5 months ago

Can I recommend a “State of BuddyPress” presentation on WordPress.tv? I think we’re all curious to hear the vision for where the lead developers hope to take this platform and what sort of timeframe those new enhancements might come to BP.

I’ve been surprised at how little (or how quietly?) spam is being addressed. My site was buffeted by an endless stream of spam before I turned BP off. I was not terribly surprised (but definitely dismayed) when I found the same thing on this very site a month or two ago. Are there any plans to hook into Akismet to prevent spammers from overrunning a BP site?

Thanks for your leadership, @apeatling and @boonebgorges.

thealchemist
Member

@thealchemist

2 years, 5 months ago

I discovered BuddyPress less than a week ago and have built TWO websites for it with one already live and nearly 75 members – I admit a bit of overenthusiastic tweaking of it – so I have little knowledge of what’s come before. I do know, as an enthusiastic WordPress user, installer and manipulator that no matter who is at the helm they are often dedicated people who are just as enthusiastic about the product if not more so. Yes. It”s nice to have a “stand out” visible leader … but as a user … I simply want a good, bug free product that helps – rather than hinders – my work for my clients.

In no time at all I can say that I will support this great product in whatever way I am able as BuddyPress has impressed me. Yeah. There are some oddities here and there, but I am confident BP will continue to grow and get better and better.

@kenwalker … I didn’t know Akismet had no integration with BP. I have WordPress + BuddyPress combo, so is there a difference?

Anyway, my two cents and thanks you’s to everyone involved.

Erlend Sogge Heggen
Participant

@sadr

2 years, 5 months ago

Sounds pretty good to me, and thanks @boonebgorges and @apeatling for dropping in. I’ve no problem with Andy parting with BuddyPress as the head developer, but as I emphasized, what I’m really missing is a more clearly defined direction. A distinct team isn’t necessarily key, but some essential initiatives have slowed down:
- Known issues in BuddyPress have gone unfixed for very long periods of time, when someone could have just tagged and released a “fix” to solve many people’s troubles.
- Feature releases have been unnecessarily far apart.
- There’s a lack of easily accessible conversations regarding future core additions. I thoroughly enjoyed that “drag & drop priority voting” of features back in the day.

I’m thrilled to see that development is picking up its pace. It just seems that the project is currently lagging behind on the organizational side. I hope you’ll agree (you being the currently most committed contributors to the project) and I’m sure you’re working on it, but I feel like the issue isn’t getting the attention and transparency it deserves.

p.s. I’m well aware of bpDevel and the devchats organized there. I was about to ask if you guys could post your chatlogs when I remembered I can always find them here:
https://irclogs.wordpress.org/

djsteve
Participant

@djsteve

2 years, 5 months ago

Interesting to know, and not surprised given the slow development. Really, who cares what the “vision” is, and what the “future goal is” – there was a vision and goal when this thing started, and buddypress does not include the functionality that the initial “vision” or “roadmap” had advertised. It’s broken, and now I guess just like BBpress is being left without the lead developer to fix the broken mess that is left behind.
Oh, but it’s open source – so leave it to all the code volunteers to be responsible for workarounds and important functions – that were suppose to be available in 2009 that we still do not have in core today. It’s really another example of automattic’s poor management as well.

Paul Gibbs
Keymaster

@djpaul

2 years, 5 months ago

I am locking this topic as @djsteve has trolled this discussion.