Recently me and my partner submitted a project application for a module that handles the communication of Drupal Commerce and Greek Banks. 4 months later we are almost regretting it!
How could this happen? Why did this happen? And most of all, is this even possible in the Drupal world???
The application approval team has a way of doing things. They want the code to be perfect. ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. Which is good, right? I mean it should be.
So we were open to fixes and changes in our code. We are no Gods you know, we make mistakes. We fixed all parts of code to follow the drupal coding standards.
Next step, fix the comments in the code to follow the standards. I must admit that some aspects of this step are absolutely ridiculous. Our code failed validation because a comment did not end in a dot or an exclamation mark. Does this change the quality of the code? No! Does this change the functionality of the module? Again no!
But we made the fixes, with pleasure, since that is the Drupal Way.
Alas our journey was far but over. Every change we made was stuck for weeks in the queue (along with many many more applications of course).
In order to get priority over other applications it was suggested that we do some reviews on other applications.
That was what drove me nuts!
I try to support Drupal in every way I can. I help the local community, I report bugs when I find them and even try to fix them if I can, I provide patches, I am an administrator of the Greek translation team and of course I'm in the Drupal Association for a few years now.
These are the ways I feel comfortable to give back to Drupal. Not because I'm a selfish monster, but because I happen to be fluent in English, for a greek guy, as to become a translator but not so fluent in checking somebody else's code so as to make a nice and helpful review of an application. I happen to spend a lot of time trying modules and combinations of them so as to report bugs, I update my sandbox to the most recent software to ensure compatibility (and report upcoming bugs if it is required) and of course I try to teach Drupal to people in my local community.
Are these not enough? Do I have to do more to get priority over others? Should there even be priority over others???
Isn't the fun side of Drupal the power of its community? A community that has succeeded in every part exactly because there were no dos and donts but because people were free to help in any way they could?
I know that many people will disagree with me, after all the application queue is huge and there should be some way of processing all these applications. It's true. But I am pretty sure that I cannot help them with a review, I don't feel like I'll be of any good. Does this mean that my application is doomed?
I can't stop thinking that while the project is still sandboxed (although it is, after 4 months, proved to be working correctly) that it is losing more than it is gaining. If people, the community, start filling issues it will evolve way faster than it does while it is in the issue queue.
But in order for people to start filling issues it must become a full-project, not a sandboxed one.
These thoughts are already known to the Drupal community through a survey about the application queue that was done two weeks ago. They will probably be discussed in Munich this August. Until then I'd love to hear what people are thinking on the matter.