More agile development process

[buddha_314]

Well, this thread looks dead, but for posterity...

I have several years experience building large-scale enterprise applications. In my experience:

* Git: Yes.  Branching is a very good thing.  Dead branches are the best place to put false starts anyway and often provide inspiration for new branches.  Not everything makes it back to master, and it shouldn't.
* Issue Tracking: Yes.  Github can provide some of this.  Even their simple issue tracker keeps things moving along and all major open source projects (think Apache Foundation) use issue tracking and release management.
* Nightly builds: Yes.  Jenkins is fine and Travis integrates with Github for a small fee. As a non-profit, it would probably be free.  This is one of the best ways to enforce good coding practices.
* Unit tests: Well, duh, yes.

Another thing, issue tracking allows people (like me) with an interest but not a lot of time to jump in and participate.  I asked how to contribute the other day and there were only "big lifts" available.  The new generations of developers (whom it would be nice to attract) think in terms of agile build/deployment cycles, issue tracking and code review.  Those are good things.

Thought I haven't the time to manage it, I'd be happy to participate in both product and project mgmt, and throw in some code now and then.

[Ravna]

Well, since I'm getting indirectly quoted, lets add another reply.

We have issue tracking already ( http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/flyspray/ ). Most of the issues there are "small fixes", and you (or anyone else) is welcome to make them, and send them my way. If they check out, they'll be added to the code, and you'll be mentioned in the commit notes/etc.
However, you specifically asked for Unreal porting tasks the other day, and that indeed has currently need for people who have more time to lay a proper foundation. So just be clear, there is plenty to do, even for people with less time. Also any non-coders are more than welcome to join our settings and rules teams (if you are interested, come ask about it on IRC).

[donato]

I work in a company whose main product is open source - it's vital for us to keep in touch with the community. One of our measures for success is actually how many open source contributors we can get.

You don't fish in an empty pond, you go to where the fish are.

github is where the open source developers are.

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=svn%2C%20git&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B4