Hi all,
This one's mainly for the community, but I'm posting it here because this is where the action is.
For your "amusement": https://www.assembla.com/spaces/enterprise-architect/tickets
This was new to me... And should in my opinion be deleted. That's not the main point of this post, however.
I think a public tracker for feature requests, and possibly (but
not necessarily!) bugs would be a very useful thing. It should include status and a voting system, and be open enough that people could contribute, but structured and moderated so things are kept relevant. A forum such as the one Sparx supplies here works for issue discussion, but not for the other things.
I've thought about suggesting something like this for the user group, or possibly the community site. If we, the enthusiasts and professionals, put some weight behind it as a collective, it could work. But Sparx would have to approve of the concept, and of the process involved.
Thomas' initiative above failed, I think, because it didn't set up a playing field beforehand. The tickets contain quoted e-mails between Thomas and Sparx, but in them there's no mention (that I've found) of Assembla -- meaning Sparx were likely unaware that their messages were being published.
This is why I think the whole thing should be deleted. It's not active and serves no useful purpose, but more to the point I think it crossed a line in terms of trust. Unless of course Sparx were aware of the Assembla tickets, I may be completely wrong about that.
But assuming I'm right, trust is important. If Sparx are not willing to make public commitments regarding schedule etc, we can't force them and we shouldn't try. Instead, we should engage with them in a constructive fashion and try to make them see things our way. But public disclosure of private e-mails without prior approval can be considered a breach of trust and is therefore not a constructive way forward -- you don't engage with someone you don't trust.
Ultimately, we must remember that the relationship between us and Sparx is one of customer -- supplier. If we want them to be a more open supplier, with a published roadmap and public issue tracking and so forth, we the community must rise above the level of enthusiasts and tinkerers. To get a pro supplier, you must be a pro client.
So. Question.
Would Sparx be interested in a public feature request system, with users able to contribute suggestions and vote on them, and Sparx able to add things like planning status (eg "next minor", "next major")?
Would we the community be interested in using and promoting such a system?
If the answer to both is yes, then I could donate some server space to host it and serve as the moderator. I would suggest setting up a six-to-twelve month trial run (enough time to last past the next major release), and then evaluate it and see how well it works.
This idea has been rumbling around the back of my skull for some time as I say, but it's not fully fleshed out. So if there's some interest from both parties I'll put in some more thinking, and obviously any thoughts and suggestions are welcome.
But if Sparx doesn't want this, and I fully understand it if they don't, it won't happen.
/Uffe
