Wed. 9th April, 2014

This Week in TYPO3 (Week 14, 2014)

Categories: This week in TYPO3, Community Created by ben van 't ende

ACME, Learn Neos, Neos code sprint more code sprints and a FLOSS podcast

TYPO3 CMS

Active Contributor Meeting – ACME (March 31 – April 2, Nuremberg, Germany)

From Monday until Wednesday the <link http: typo3.org news article typo3-cms-active-contributors-meeting-2014>TYPO3 CMS active contributors met in Nuremberg for it's half-yearly meeting. Besides the folks that are actively engaged coding-wise into TYPO3 CMS the meeting also welcomed guests Mathias Schreiber (workpackages.org), Ben van 't Ende (Community manager) and Martin Wiederkehr representing the EAB (Expert Advisory Board). A meeting like this is not a code sprint, but typically deals with aspects like strategy, retrospective, team spirit and communication. With the release of TYPO3 CMS 6.2 fresh on everyone's minds a retrospective and more in-depth discussions brought to light that team collaboration could be improved. For that purpose interest groups were established within the CMS team focused on testing, performance, marketing, logging, file abstraction layer, extension management, extbase, database abstraction, clean-up and architecture. One of the most important directions the team wants to take is a combination of rolling releases and long term support. A blueprint for that will be written and put up for discussion.

The team talked about its relation to Neos. There is trust and commitment inside the community for TYPO3 CMS and on the side of the developers motivation and man-power to work on enhancements and to tackle issues for a long time to come. There was consensus that this developer centric team will not be able to solve this "product shaping". A more specialized group (including people from marketing, CMS and Neos teams) like at last year's marketing sprint will need to deal with that. Mathias presented learnings from last year's <link http: typo3.org news article marketing-sprint-2013-communication-workshop>two-day communication workshop the marketing team organised in Altleiningen during a marketing sprint. That workshop covered Open Source community topics concerning leadership, governance, negotiation, values, conflict, conflict resolution and everything surrounding communication. This was a good basis in this ACME to discuss team spirit on the last day. Next to establishing the interest groups the team also talked about operating more from <link http: neos.typo3.org contribute values.html>values like stated in the Neos team, which essentially means basing collaboration on trust. Trust is not something you can implement as a process, but a consensus was reached on having team communication as a topic on all future code sprints or other similar meetings. A quote from Ernesto Baschny's <link http: typo3.org news article typo3-cms-active-contributors-meeting-2014>article wraps that up perfectly: “The value of communication, the channels, the potential problems, how to deal with trolls, how to use the communication sandwich technique. In general most communication issues can be solved with self-reflection of own actions, including stepping down, being humble, agreeing to disagree in the end (which is quite natural for individuals) or to just accept other opinions. It's quite natural that community includes diversity which should not only be accepted, but encouraged in general.”

Code Sprint (May 2–4, Bremen, Germany)

The third TYPO3 CMS Code Sprint and the first sprint after the release of TYPO3 CMS 6.2 LTS in 2014 will be in Bremen and focused on the next minor release 6.2.1. The sprint is not fully booked and you are welcome to participate. The <link http: wiki.typo3.org cms_codesprint_2014>CMS CodeSprint 2014/3: Bremen wiki page offers more info on the location and on how to contact he organisation. Travel and accommodation expenses are covered on a budget from the TYPO3 Association. Please register before April 10 so the organisation can secure hotel reservations.

TYPO3 CMS Distributions

Flow/Neos

Code Sprint (March 23–27, Rosenheim, Germany)

In the week preceding the Inspiring Conference the Neos team had a sprint at the <link http: www.fh-rosenheim.de en>Rosenheim University of Applied Sciences. The sprint focused on two major features: localization of nodes and access management. Up 25 attendants participated in the sprint.

The sprint started with a demonstration by Rasmus and Aske who showed the basic concept for the localization UI. Based on this demo the team discussed the needed features and interface components and finalized the concept which was also the basis for sprint tasks, like backend interface designs as well as the implementation of the different parts needed for the localization user interface. At the same time work on access management was done in parallel. <link http: neos.typo3.org news typo3-neos-code-sprint-march-2014.html>A full overview of the features worked on can be found on the Neos website.

Learn Neos

Kiel based company <link http: www.networkteam.com>networkteam started <link http: learn-neos.com>Learn Neos last week with interactive tutorials and detailed guides about TYPO3 Neos. A first article, <link http: learn-neos.com blog hitchhikers-guide-to-typoscript-2-part1.html>Hitchhiker's guide to TypoScript 2, deals with the successor of TypoScript like we know from TYPO3 CMS.

Events

TYPO3 CMS Garden at WorldHostingDays (April 1-3, Rust, Germany)

CMS Garden is a community oriented initiative where OS CMS-es join forces to represent themselves at fairs and conferences, which otherwise would not be possible. Berhard Welzel from <link http: launchr.com>launchr.com and active contributor to CMS Garden for the TYPO3 community lets us know the following about the WHD event of last week: CMSGarden e.V. was invited to join the <link http: www.worldhostingdays.com eng>WHD.global from 1.-3. April 2014 in Rust, Germany. The organisation set up a separate Open Source Area, with the CMS Garden booth in the middle as the main attraction. Fabian Stein (<link http: punkt.de>punkt.de) helped to present TYPO3 CMS & TYPO3 Neos, joined by Andreas Förthner and Clemens Kalb (<link http: netlogix.de>netlogix.de) who presented "Hosting TYPO3 Flow and Neos" as part of the Open Source Session Track. I had the honour to become a Open Source Ambassador both at the WHD.global and the CEBIT two week before, with is a very rewarding and extremely fun experience. Personally, I learned so much from the other members of the CMS Garden about there products and how to be very open minded about other solutions for our common problems. I enjoyed it so much to present and demo TYPO3 Neos, and I wish you had experience the reaction yourself: People are really amazed by how simple it is to use, how much fun it is to manage content and how little knowledge is required to get started (using it). At the WHD another feedback also reached the CMS Garden from the ISP & Web Hosting Companies: Our products are not so simple to install and maintenance, and (security) updates can be challenging. This can get quit painful for shared hosting providers with a bigger number of installations; a pain some of the visitors cared to share with us on a personal level. I personally met so many inspiring People at this event that I can´t wait to be there next year; if you want to be part of this conversation don´t hesitate to contact Ben or me for more details.

TYPO3camp Venlo (April 11-13, Venlo, The Netherlands)

Only days until <link http: www.typo3campvenlo.nl>TYPO3Camp Venlo will be held again from April 11-13. It is not the biggest TYPO3camp for sure, but the organisation lets us know that this years weekend will be feature interesting talks and a lot of TYPO3 community members from various backgrounds in the TYPO3 world have registered for this international event.

Developer Days (June 19-22, Eindhoven, The Netherlands)

More code sprints

Community Tools (May 2-4, Wiesbaden, Germany)

For the past three year we had about 3-4 code sprints every year with a focus on <link http: typo3.org>typo3.org. The current situation regarding our central hub is stable, we have an excellent deployment process running and a maintenance contract with <link http: www.aoe.com>AOE that ensures security updates and other necessary maintenance tasks are done in a timely matter for the website. The <link events code-sprints community-tools-code-sprint>next<link events code-sprints community-tools-code-sprint> sprint will be from May 1-3 in the new <link http: aoe.com>AOE offices in the heart of Wiesbaden. A <link http: wiki.typo3.org>number of items are already on the 'urgent' list. These sprints usually have a wide scope and are very interesting and worthwhile to join. Topics for the sprint are taking shape and can be found on the <link http: wiki.typo3.org typo3.org>wiki. Upgrading (preparation) to the new TYPO3 version is an important topic and furthermore topics like TER and integration of the certification website needs to be taken care of. The coming sprint is not fully booked and can use your support. If you have any questions regarding the sprint and want to know in what way you can contribute to our community tools, please write an email to <link>ben.vantende@typo3.org.

Christian Müller joined Randal Schwartz a couple of weeks ago for his weekly FLOSS Podcast. Christian shares some information on the TYPO3 Project in <link http: www.podcastdirectory.com episodes floss-weekly-287-typo3-28038829.html>FLOSS Weekly 287: TYPO3. Randal Schwartz casts every Wednesday as he talks with the most interesting and important people in the Open Source and Free Software community. Check out the events calendar for a user group meeting, code sprint or other event near you: <link http: typo3.org events>typo3.org/events/. Do not hesitate to share you TYPO3 activities in 'This Week in TYPO3'. Just let me (@benvantende) know what you are up to.

This Week in TYPO3 (Week 14, 2014)

TYPO3 CMS