The past 3 months I haven't blogged much here on dotnetnuke.com. I still continued blogging on my AppTheory blog with misc. tips and tricks around DotNetNuke but instead of spending my free time blogging here I have been working on several things for DotNetNuke. Well, as things are getting closer to Open Force my time sees to be freeing up a bit. While I can't go into details on everything, I figured it is worth touching on a few.
The forums release has been doing pretty well, however, the downloads are really down compared to releases of the past. I assume this is because of some bug issues in the past and a very delayed release correcting those issue, but I also believe this has a lot to do with the lack of adaption here on this site. I know that what I say here, ultimately, won't win many over (in the community) but I can say that I believe 100% you are better off running the 4.5.3 latest release over any release prior to this version (so long as your core version is supported). Also, I hope to see an upgrade here very soon (hint) primarily because I think it is just easier to use.
Now, on to the fun stuff. As previously mentioned by Scott, we have done some internal core team reorganization. There are several specific groups within the core now and I fall into the DNN Forge team. For the past month or so we have been getting together in groups and having web conferences. We have always, and still, had team chats but sometimes 20+ people meeting for 2 hours just isn't enough time to get to everything. There is also something that happens in a meeting of this size which I think is just unavoidable, filibustering. It is not the fault of any one person nor do I feel it is their intent (or even aware that they are doing it), it just happens because there are so many things to consider with each decision being made as a team.
Being broken down into smaller groups permits options to be debated amongst the smaller teams initially Ultimately, I see this as a way of more people being involved and it will result in a better experience for the community and the product. It hasn't been long but I feel that I have already seen lots of progress because of this. Having been privy to the recent team meeting plus the several things I an involved with, I expect to see results that will engage the community more so than in the past and I look forward to this.
One of the Forge projects I am working on, which I think will engage the community, is moving our source code over to CodePlex. Michael Washington, who is also on the DNN Forge team, recently blogged about moving DNN Survey over there. In the past, the open source DotNetNuke project never permitted the community to access any of the core OR sub-project code changes between releases (meaning daily builds). Having been a core team member all this time I understand the reasons behind that decision but I am pleased to see this situation changing.
With the move of the sub-projects to CodePlex people will now have access to the latest checked-in source code at any time for those sub-projects that already made the move. We are in the very early stages of this move and we, as a group of developers from across the globe, all have our own way of doing things. This project will hopefully result in some consistency that can be applied across all projects (some are WAP, WSP, Provider, Modules, Controls, etc.). Personally, one of my goals with this project is to provide real world documentation to the community that is DotNetNuke specific. What I mean by this is we have to make decisions, as a Core Team group, then document these things for the entire team to consume. Once these documents are created, and utilized by the core team members, they can then be passed on to the community. This, like the move to CodePlex, is much more open than we have been in the past and I also feel it can really help small business owners and educational institutions out there.
I also recently got involved in a project going on with the DNN Experience team. I can't say much, as I believe this won't be announced until Open Force, but this one was much more fun than documentation. Finally, I believe at OpenForce in Las Vegas we will be announcing something I am really excited about. To avoid even providing a single hint, all I will say is that I think this one announcement which will please DotNetNuke enthusiasts everywhere.
I never intended for this to be an ad for Open Force but there really has been so much going on that will be announced there. I think all this stuff being announced there will really change DotNetNuke as a product and a community, for the good. AppTheory has a booth where I will be relaxing on a couch in-between sessions (I've been working hard on all the stuff above in addition to AppTheory, I deserve a rest!) so stop by and introduce yourself if you make it there.