Kevinjohn Gallagher

Dear BackPress Team,

My name is Kevinjohn Gallagher, and I’m one of the people to who contribute to bbPress.

That is the standalone forum software available at bbpress.org, and not the BuddyPress plug-in called bbPress, nor the bbPress plug-in in the WordPress plug-in directory.

It is sometimes confusing as they all use the same name, so I find it’s best to be upfront about which one of the 3 pieces of software I am trying to help (even if I do sometimes feel like I’m saying that I’m the “People’s front of Judea” rather than the “Judean’s People’s Front” ).

With bbPress utterly reliant on BackPress for it’s next release, I am wondering if I could have 5 minutes of your time to discuss/asnwer the following questions:

• Who is the BackPress project lead?
• Who is the best person to contact when the lines of communication break down between BackPress and it’s dependants?
• What is the best communication method when this happens?
  • given that BacKPress has no forum
  • it’s Mailling List has had 3 emails in 4 months, none of them from any core developers or team members
  • Trac updates have met with no respsonse
  • the Link to the Trac Update List from the BackPress website results in a 404
• I was wondering what the current/proposed release schedule is for BackPress?
• Are more tickets going to be added to the current Milestone?
• Could we suggest/promote/prod/beg/bribe for 2 tickets to be added to the current Milestone?
• Realistically, is there a ballpark time/date when we think the current Milestone will be released?

I realise that some or all of these questions might not be any one person’s to answer, or that I might not be the person to whom these answers should be directed, but I would greatly appreciate any insight you can give me.

Basically, we’re somewhat screwed waiting on BackPress.

We have 2 blocker bugs which are causing all sorts of havoc right now.

• http://backpress.automattic.com/ticket/18

Opened 6 months ago, this is blocking us from releasing bbPress1.0.3.

More realistically, it’s stopping us from releasing it out for testing. bbP1.0.3 has over a year of bug fixes and code patches, and there will be an awful lot of bugs, and we can’t roll it out for testing until this has been cleared. It appears to me that it’s a very simple fix (apologies if I’ve gotten that wrong). I suppose I’m concerned as it’s had no response from the BackPress team, even after Sam Bauers updated it in May.

• http://backpress.automattic.com/ticket/25

This one is a biggie.
BackPress currently refuses to parse any ampersand fronted code.

Every single HTML tag, or PHP class notation on the bbPress website is currently un-usable and un-readable.
Not only does it make the site look like it’s broken (and it is after a half-baked patchy theme release), but it also makes giving support and code near impossible.

This is also blocking bbPress1.0.3; but this one has had a patch in the BackPress track for over 2 weeks.

Help Us, Help Ourselves

I understand completely that with WordPress3.0 just out the door that working on BackPress in order to fix bbPress isn’t seen as the highest priority. That is a very reasonable viewpoint. From our point of view though, the difficulty is the lack of communication. We have NO idea what is going on, and have reached out to BackPress and WordPress contributors on this subject in an attempt to garnish some form of information, only to have recieved no response or no descernable information from the communicae.

I ask, from one person trying to help an open source project to another, to shed whatever light you can on BackPress for us. We can plan and advise against whatever information we’re given, but it’s the unknown that is daunting. We can’t answer support questions, we cant answer planning questions, code contributors can’t test their code, plugin authors can’t test their plugins – we’re in a holding pattern, just looping over and over – but shedding key contributors in the process.

Knowing what’s going on with BackPress will allow us to better communicate and plan bbPress; and we’d apprecaite any help you could give us in this matter.

“Once men are caught up in an event, they cease to be afraid.
Only the unknown frightens them.”
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-1944)

Thank you for your time,

Kevinjohn Gallagher

EDIT: 2nd July 2010 @ 3pm

I’d like to offer my public thanks to Westi for not only fixing our outstanding tickets but also sending me a lonely reply by email. There is no doubt that the BackPress project is far from a priority at Automattic right now, but having cleared up the lines of communication and thrown himself into the bbPress mix so quickly, I’m sure we’ll see good things happen soon.

First pint in Manchester is on me!!