Ok, so I started this conversation with an attention grabbing headline, but I truely believe it. I have had so many people come in and ask about the status of their code going from sandbox to release. The problem, people waiting a week or more for their project to even get a response from those few brave soles who have volunteered for the review process.
Now I have followed up on this and even talked to the head of this review process, and it simply is too cumbersome to continue. We are taking our next generation of contributors telling them to hurry up and wait. This is completely unacceptable and as one person stated "Its like running out of gas while idling."
We have to get the module's to open up to all and we can not wait any longer. EVERY day we wait is another day that we may loose the next Merlin, CHX, Michelle, Webchick or the numbers of other people who do tremendous thankless hours of work. These people will move onto other CMS's.
Problem
The problem is that it does limit the ability to have application developers to get their code out. The system is logically sound, but is impractical due to resources. If we had enough code reviewers where the average turn around on a response from the issue querry was a day or less the system would be great. If the system took 1 week for a module to get published I would not be here to have this discussion with you. I was upset when I thought the process took 2 weeks, but when I heard that was incredibly optimistic and that it was around 2 MONTHS, I could not sit back and let this happen to Drupal. This will KILL the entire project!
History
When I started with Drupal, I made a horrible little module that was poorly formatted and barely passable for a spot on the website. CHX looked at a few files and put the project on the site. Within minutes, I started to get feedback on how to make my horrible module meet standards. I got patches and other things, and I quickly improved my module. The only committee I had to face was my peers. Fellow Drupalers. That small 5.x module is still beign used by 10 people (even though control of it has been passed over to another maintainer), and there are people requesting for it to be upgraded. 10 people who needed what I had done is a rather good achievement for that little scrap peace of code. Not to mention that process got me too write better code and to follow Drupal standards. The system did everything it was suppose to and no one did anything intentionally to make it work.
Somewhere along the line (around a year ago) the idea that standards are optional became standards are a must. This is a HUGE mistake. Hacking (not the illegal type) is a VERY valuable asset to a community, and GREAT hackers are not only in visionary, but can create incredibly powerful applications, and they do so by breaking what was once considered traditional boundaries. We do not want a system that eliminates hackers via a review process.
From the discussion with Zzolo, the head of this process, and others the idea was not to hinder the module development process but to offer mentoring and to increase the uses of Drupals coding standards.
How the Review process works NOW!
People, with the best intentions, created a process where modules are put into the sandbox. The idea was to hook up new contributors with mentors to improve module quality and release higher quality modules. In practice this is a process intensive task that requires a tremendous amount of work from volunteers we simply do not have enough of.
What has been Suggested!
Some have suggested creating bots to go through and review processes based on a set of rules. Some have even started this process. But those of us who have worked with making changes to drupal.org know, that these if this was written tomorrow, it would take months, if not years to make it up onto the site.
Others suggest that we need more reviewers. Well how long are we going to wait for this staff of people who are willing to go over other peoples code and comment on how to make it better. From what I see this process has been in place for well over a year, and we still dont have the staff.
I have heard concerns about "Drupal" becoming a "Dumping Ground" for all sorts of stuff (not the actual word used). Well why is it that Joomla and Wordpress do not have any such review process.
I am sure there are a hundred other reasons why we should hold off, but I can give you 1 reason why we cant wait. We are turning people who are offering their time to Drupal and telling them to hurry up and wait. We beg for their help and then ask them to hold until we approve of their work. That is not only impractical but insulting. If I had to go through this with My First Horribly written module, I would not be here today.
Solution
The solution is simple, if a module has a GNU/GPL licensee, a Read Me and will register with the update system it is in. Allow anyone who has a level of trust and a moment to look for these few things to turn a sandbox project into a project featured on our page. Do this IMMEDIATELY!
Next, we may want to change the review process into a mentoring process. Allow module maintainers to work towards a coveted achievement of Approved Drupal Module developer or any other title you wish to give them. Hell, make a small smiley face to put on their profile. If you doubt people wont do what it takes to get this, ask the millions of people who have spent 100's of hours killing a gazillion bad guys in any of the popular games, just so they could have the distinct title of "Super Bad Guy Killa!"
We should work towards a peer review system and put a rush on the metric proposal. Wordpress and Joomla both have rating and peer review systems in place, and I would be surprised if the majority of other CMS systems do not have a similar feature. Lets say that 1/100 people contribute modules, then regardless of how big our population grows, we will continue to have a proportional number of people to review modules. Lets face it, everyone has an opinion, and getting that opinion is not hard at all. Lets utilize these opinions and these people to make their own voices heard on what is and is not good for them.
If someone makes a module that says "Hello", I may not like it. I may find it stupid. But who am I to tell you that its an invalid idea. Who am I to tell you that no one will use it. Let the public decide who uses it and who doesn't.
Conclusion
Stop reviewing all modules outside of the scope for the most fundamental basics (like the existence of Licensee.txt, Version information, maybe a read me. Drop it all. Then lets work on solutions that are not only positive, but can actually be implemented. I will not accept delay, this is simply too important for that. I will not watch another contributor go to word press to develop their modules.
After that is done, lets talk about other solutions to improve the quality of the modules we have and to improve the ability for the consumers of those modules to decide for themselves what they want.
-Some will see this as being aggressive. But make no mistake, I do not wish anyone harm. No one is to be blamed, hung or insulted. This was a Great idea that works on paper but fails in practice. But this needs Buzz, this needs attention, and this needs to be fixed. Hang Me if you want, but please save Drupal.
References:
http://drupal.org/project/projectapplications
http://drupal.org/project/issues/projectapplications?categories=All
http://drupal.org/node/1011698
http://drupal.org/node/713102
http://drupal.org/node/645470