Re: On PEAR quality issues and natural selection

Hi Alexey, Alexey Borzov wrote:

Hi? This is precisely the kind of answer I was afraid to see. :[ There are *specific* problems with PEAR, but such *general* comments will not help fix them. Hans Lellelid wrote:

I just had to add my .02 here, since I've also felt pretty disappointed in PEAR. Sure, on one hand I don't contribute to PEAR & so I don't really have a right to complain. But on the other hand, PEAR does have a responsibility to represent the PHP community, and I'd say that the image PEAR portrays is not one I'm proud to be associated with in any way: it's one of fragile egos picking apart great contributions in the name of making things consistent with a vision that doesn't exist -- except apparently in the minds of the people rejecting proposals.

You're right & I apologize for the general diatribe. In a nutshell the principles that I was attempting to articulate are: 1- I agree that PEAR needs to be more open. Criteria for allowing packages into PEAR should be based on code quality and existence of documentation alone. (I would say, no voting at all.) Trivial requirements need to be put aside and the image needs to change to a supporting, welcoming image -- rather than the current image of exclusivity. 2- Also, I think that PEAR package owners need to be "dethroned." The fact that a QA team is needed to be able to intervene & fix bugs, etc. is ridiculous. I think that it should be easy for developers to request "developer" status in a project and then fix bugs, etc. without checking at every step with the project owners. 3- I think the PEAR infrastructure needs improvement. The installer could use vast improvement -- as could the website. The documentation format is lousy & confusing (as others have pointed out). Adding bugs for packages could be much easier. Simply getting to package documentation from the package info page could be easier. In short, the site could really use some usability reworking. In short, I think that PEAR should be a community more like sourceforge or tigris.org. Sure there are some basic requirements for adding a package (and PEAR could have more requirements like documentation, etc.), but it's not like you're not going to get approved if you have a legitimate proposal. If PEAR had a clear vision for what it aimed to provide, then this could be different, but it does not. Hans

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