Developer Recruiting

Not sure where to point this but...

Recently I have started using Twitter (immensely useful believe it or not) and come across a few php developers of varying skillsets who have expressed at least interest enough about MODx to find out more about the project.

I am asking what we are looking for in a developer to help on the project and what I can tell them/show them to get them started in the world of MODx so that they might be engaged and interested in contributing to the project in a meaningful way. They have indicated that they like OS projects and so long as community, atmostphere relating to expectations and respect for individual lives they’d love to take a peek.

I think that it will be important that we have a way to stream potential developers into the project without all my ham-handed fumbling. I don’t have the technical knowledge or intimacy with the dev needs to direct these folks but at least one of them is pretty cool and though he works in Ruby most of the time these days I know he has lots of PHP exp.

Thoughts? Is there a dev intro document that I should sending people to? Is there a way we could turn it into a very personal yet consistent welcome mat for new devs.

Cheers,

Jay

Well, currently there is this:

http://svn.modxcms.com/docs/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=3309593

But we definitely need some more ironed-out plans for copyright issues with code contributions. Jason, Ryan and I have talked about discussing trying CLAs or something similar with the team, and there are a lot of issues that come up with making sure we don’t get sued or have work stolen.

I’m sure Jason will pitch in here soon.

Shaun,

That is exactly why I posted first. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t overstepping or potentially opening a can of worms. On the one hand Jason and Ryan have expressed the need to grow the team on the other we don’t want losers and thieves to show up either.

Jay

Quote from: smashingred at May 01, 2008, 11:41 AM

Shaun,

That is exactly why I posted first. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t overstepping or potentially opening a can of worms. On the one hand Jason and Ryan have expressed the need to grow the team on the other we don’t want losers and thieves to show up either.

Jay

Great - thanks for doing so. If anyone has ideas on how to handle copyrighting on code contribs in a proper legal manner and still keeps the pipeline open, please say so - we’re not experts by any means, and are still looking for a good solution to this issue.

Shaun, Jason Ryan et al.,

I am just checking in to see if there are more thoughts about this here? I have at least 2 devs that might be of help, one especially should I just get them onto 0.9.6 and 0.9.7 and to the document suggested? Not making any statements about project contribs yet. I just want to make sure that we put out the welcome mat in some way. I understand if we need some ducks aligned.

Cheers,

Jay

At this juncture, I’d get developers involved with 0.9.7. I think the best starting point there is probably the announcement in crucible. I think, anyways ... I need more sleep right now!

Quote from: rthrash at May 02, 2008, 07:29 AM

At this juncture, I’d get developers involved with 0.9.7. I think the best starting point there is probably the announcement in crucible. I think, anyways ... I need more sleep right now!

They need to get involved where they want to get involved IMHO.

In my perspective, the current reality is, this is a meritocracy, and devs will have to prove they are capable by contributing patches to the project that get accepted, or through some other team consensus. This is the status quo, but have been pretty good at recognizing good talent when it gets involved here. And that said, I would rather see us pick up relevant talent from the community; developers who have some vested interest in making MODx a success (i.e. they already use and depend on it). I’ve seen projects get taken over by outside developers who have no real stakes in a project, despite their wonderful skills, and that generally equates to a lower quality result, or a less collaborative experience as a result of the lower amount of personal or business interest.

I think we need to start thinking in terms of how to attract existing development teams to use MODx so more quality developers, and organizations with an interest in MODx, become part of the vested community. I think 0.9.7 public progress will start to increase interest from some respected development shops, so we need to get those ducks in a row sooner than later. Unfortunately, there are no easy decisions here, and the more I consider our options, the more I feel like we’re doing ok with our current path. In the end, the new core will either be attractive to PHP developers on it’s own merit, or it won’t.

Jason,

I have send some info to a couple people and told them I’m not soliciting team members but people who are interested in using and contributing and that team members are selected/chosen by the foundation if merited.

I also have a huge respect for a meritocracy, application development or management requires narrow control and be open to input. It makes projects or organizations work. You can’t have a project where everyone is the leader.

I have suggested some links to get started including the Get Started, How to contribute and Alpha announcement. As you say PHP devs will either want to use or contrib or they won’t.

All I want to do is paint the arrows on the floor and let developers decide.

Cheers,

Jay

Quote from: OpenGeek at May 02, 2008, 09:17 AM

I think we need to start thinking in terms of how to attract existing development teams to use MODx so more quality developers, and organizations with an interest in MODx, become part of the vested community.

This sounds like a marketing action to be started. To just spread the word about MODx to devs and not (necessarily) direct them to contribute. Just make a business case to adopt it as their CMF of choice.