OpenPlans Operations

<obligatory> hello, world! </obligatory>

New intern, first post. I feel like my brain’s been expanding exponentially every day since I got here - the most stunning revelation being (you’ll laugh) that really productive software engineers spend lots of time not writing code. My new paradigm is that we make software work for people, which means a lot more than just churning out new lines of Python. I’m not sure what the “lots more” consists of yet (apparently, testing is one of them) but I’ve got 8 more weeks to learn more about that.

What I’d like to talk about today is the project I’m supposed to be figuring out in my copious amounts of free time. It’s currently a on-again-off-again Trac instance on David’s tower in the process of being themed with Deliverance. (Or at least so I claim. It’s really more like “I’m still trying to figure out how to theme Trac with Deliverance.”)

First sentence from the descript: “Opdev is a developers’ center for standalone components of the openplans stack.” I’ll let you read the rest of the description there, which covers stuff like who it’s for, why (I think) we need it, and, in vague, sketchy terms, some tentative plans for implementation that will undoubtedly change as soon as bits and pieces come into being. Please leave lots and lots of comments, criticisms, fill out a wishlist… how can something like this make life easier for openplans developers, both inside TOPP and (eventually) outside it too?

At the brainstorm for opdev earlier this week (up in the PP loft), a lot of good questions were raised. Why this, why Trac, why dogfooding openplans.org won’t work, what’s needed, who for… good things that helped shape what kind of framework I have to hammer up for opdev before people can start using it and making it theirs.

And then there were the Really Big Questions about openplans in general, way beyond the scope of opdev. These were even more interesting, and had no answers (at the brainstorm, anyway) but I’m curious to hear what people think of them.

1. Is our product software, or is our product a (hosted) service? What do we want it to be?
   
2. Who should use openplans-the-stack? Openplans.org? The components of openplans? What does this mean about where we should spend our efforts?
   
3. What kind of external development (and by extension, developers) should we support for openplans? Why?
   

Discuss.