[Scummvm-devel] Understaffing (Was: What is happening to the ScummVM team?)

[Filippos Karapetis]

Sorry for the late reply to this, I was extremely busy these days.

It's sad to see Max step down, though it's understandable. However, this does leave a big burden on one person (namely, Eugene), so in my opinion, it would be best if there was one more person to help with some "high level" administrative tasks.

I do agree that it would be good to assign different persons for some administrative tasks (like, for example, the web page, the wiki and the build server). Bear in mind that this is all done voluntarily, so in my opinion people shouldn't be *forced* to contribute all the time, but at least there should be a forewarning if the person(s) in charge for a particular administrative position do not have the time to do what they promised to.

During the last month there has been a booming activity in the developer mailing list, something that is quite pleasant and nice to see, after a long time of silence. It gives us a way to exchange ideas and thoughts, and drives us away from being a bunch of people, each one working on a specific area of the project, but being detached from everyone else. 

However, having said that, I do agree that some decisions need to be taken from the project leaders themselves, because it would stop things to a screeching halt if we have to discuss about every little decision. Big decisions *should* be discussed though, cause we're all contributing to this project in one way or another, so we'd all like to enjoy what we're doing, and not see it changing  drastically and turn into something we no longer have any reason to work on.

The whole idea of splitting up administrative tasks sounds more than reasonable, cause currently it all falls on the shoulders of a couple of individuals, and everyone expects them to handle them, ignoring their own real life problems. I would be happy to help in any way I can, but we need to identify which roles are needed, the people we got available to fill these positions, and a person to coordinate all of these people (which I would guess would most probably be Eugene?). Personally, I have years of experience with PHP, and I've worked both as a server administrator and a web developer, so I can help with tasks like these.

Finally, I'd like to say that I feel great with the way that this project progresses, there has been tremendous development over the last years, and a lot of very nice and skilled people from all over the world helping with several aspects of the project, including the code, the wiki, and the web site. The code base is of a very high standard and quite mature, making it possible to port it under a huge variety of platforms (some of them quite exotic), and there are people who love our work and help us port it (like, for example, the latest Android port). There are also a lot of people who like the way we work and OSystem itself, and have offered to create all sorts of new engines (e.g. the groovie, kom, interspective engines and so many others).

I'm glad to be working with such a fantastic team, and I believe that we can achieve even more great feats in the future by communicating and collaborating efficiently.

Regards
Filippos Karapetis

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