Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 4:43 am Post subject: Questions about NeoOffice for a study thesis
Dear NeoOffice community,
my name is Alexander Poschmann. I am a student at the University of Mannheim in Germany.
Currently I'm writing a study thesis about software engineering.
The topic is: "The Influence of Software Projects‘ Characterisitics on the Choice of Development Methodology"
I'm focussing on Open Source projects, because I think Open Source is one of the most interesting ways of developing software.
I also believe Open Source will become more and more important in the future.
As I want to get some information directly from the project members, I have some questions to you.
I know, it's a long list of questions, but answering some of them will help me a lot.
My questions:
1. How many active contributors are there at the moment?
2. From what countries are the contributors?
3. As there are no customers, how is decided what to implement next and what is important?
4. Does an official project manager exist? If yes, why it's him/her?
5. What are the real jobs of the contributors? How many professionals are there?
6. When was the last version released? When will be the next release? Do you have release deadlines?
7. When and how do you plan what shall be implemented in the next release?
8. Is it possible to add a feature between two releases? Or do you have to wait for the next planning phase?
9. Do you use any developing methodology? For example agile software engineering, waterfall or RUP?
10. If yes, why do you use it? Who introduced this methodology?
11. How do you communicate? Forum, Instant Messenger, Skype, phone, etc.?
12. Do you have regular chat/skype meetings?
13. Please describe the process of planning, designing, implementing, testing and launching a new version of the software.
14. How often do you refactor the application design?
15. How is the testing done? Who does it? When and how often do you test? Do you document the tests?
16. Do you have any coding standards? If yes, how strict do you control them?
17. Is everyone allowed to change everything? Or are there some restrictions?
Thanks for your time and effort.
Maybe I can contribute to your project in return for your help. Just let me know.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 2:02 pm Post subject: Re: Questions about NeoOffice for a study thesis
Hello there! I'll try to put down some answers for you.
aposchma wrote:
1. How many active contributors are there at the moment?
There are two active engineers (myself and Patrick), a person handling server maintenance and support, probably about 3-5 graphic artists who help out with icons and other artwork, and probably a dozen or so people that actively help out providing support here on the forums, writing user guides, etc. Overall I'd say it's probably about 30 maximum.
aposchma wrote:
2. From what countries are the contributors?
Patrick and I are based in the US, but our other volunteers are also from Europe and Austrailia.
aposchma wrote:
3. As there are no customers, how is decided what to implement next and what is important?
I completely disagree with the assumption that there are no customers. Personally, I feel all of our users are our customers, as we are supported by their generous donations. We focus on their concerns, but our primary focus is on bug fixing and stability. We add functionality only when there is spare time or no bugs to fix
aposchma wrote:
4. Does an official project manager exist? If yes, why it's him/her?
No.
aposchma wrote:
5. What are the real jobs of the contributors? How many professionals are there?
Patrick is a full time engineer working on Neo as his job. I am a software engineer at another company and work in my spare time. Our server and support engineer works on Neo part-time.
aposchma wrote:
6. When was the last version released? When will be the next release? Do you have release deadlines?
There are no plans for another significant release at this time as we are still fixing bugs found by our users.
aposchma wrote:
7. When and how do you plan what shall be implemented in the next release?
We have no formalized planning process. Everything is organic.
aposchma wrote:
8. Is it possible to add a feature between two releases? Or do you have to wait for the next planning phase?
We have an automatic patch distribution system that we use to deploy bug fixes. From time to time we also use this patch deployment system to add new features, such as Snow Leopard support.
aposchma wrote:
9. Do you use any developing methodology? For example agile software engineering, waterfall or RUP?
There is no set methodology. It's kind of a mix between cowboy coding and, very occasionally, XP.
aposchma wrote:
11. How do you communicate? Forum, Instant Messenger, Skype, phone, etc.?
Primarily IM/SMS and these forums.
aposchma wrote:
12. Do you have regular chat/skype meetings?
We don't have formalized meetings, but I'm talking with Patrick at least once every few days.
aposchma wrote:
13. Please describe the process of planning, designing, implementing, testing and launching a new version of the software.
Planning/designing - see above; we don't have any formalized process. Implementation is, well, coding. As our work is built on a number of other open source projects, generally we have to adapt to all the changes in those projects. Similarly, as the operating system and Java VM change, we need to revise our fixes.
For testing, we usually have a small group of volunteers look at the software. I usually try to put new versions into my day to day workflow to find any errors. For major releases, we also run an Early Access Program at the point where we think the software is stable. This program provides access to binaries as well as support for fixing any bugs they encounter...it's a way we try to focus on the needs of our donors and other significant users. From the start of EAP, the application then gets fixes incorporated through periodic binary patches. We don't do strict versioning, but the software is continually evolving.
aposchma wrote:
14. How often do you refactor the application design?
Never.
aposchma wrote:
15. How is the testing done? Who does it? When and how often do you test? Do you document the tests?
See above. Testing is not documented.
aposchma wrote:
16. Do you have any coding standards? If yes, how strict do you control them?
The only coding standard is that we do not change whitespace for no reason to cause unnecessary diffs. Being only 2 engineers, everything is kind of self-policed
aposchma wrote:
17. Is everyone allowed to change everything? Or are there some restrictions?
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