Tuesday I had the opportunity to attend the developer team meeting of LimeSurvey. I was invited, because as a result of several forum posts I saw that the gap between development and the user community was too big and I wanted to offer my help.

The latest new release of LimeSurvey 2.50 raised many eyebrows and I thought it would be good to see what the developers would discuss about it.

It turned out to be a very lively discussion. All agreed that the process was far from elegant. But since the release candidates for 2.5 received too little attention and too few bug reports from real users came in, this move was made. I guess the development team would have wanted more involvement from the users.

As for now there are actually two releases:

• release 2.06 LTS (Long Time Support) for people that have an existing installation and that do not want to migrate to version 2.50 (yet). This release (with security updates & bug fixes) will stay available for about 6 months from now.
• release 2.50 that is advised for people that start using LimeSurvey and for existing users that want to use the new features of 2.50.

These new features are:

• responsive user interface for the backend of LimeSurvey
• responsive templates in the basic installation
• responsiveness based on the Bootstrap framework
• several other smaller improvements
At

the meeting some harsh words were spoken, but in the end the development team headed for the future again.

What did I think of this as a user of LimeSurvey?
I also think that the move to declare LimeSurvey 2.50 was a nasty decision, but I also see that the development team was in a deadlock: too little feedback from the user community. That is where the heavy users of LimeSurvey, and I consider myself one of the lighter "heavy users"of LimeSurvey, come in. Did I do enough testing? No, I did not. I think I felt myself not very much psychologically attached to LimeSurvey. And I think that is just what LimeSurvey is suffering from.

LimeSurvey has many users. Of all sorts. Many of them even involved in psychology research. But I think too few people really feel involved with it.

Could we indentify those that are really involved? Can we indentify several groups? How can we set up communication between the development team (who are actually not users of the software) and the different users groups?

I think it is necessary, because without involvement the development team cannot do enough to satisfy the users. There needs to be an interaction of ideas, bug reports (and money) between the user community and the developers.

Please throw in your 2 cents (or more, if you can spend it...)

Hi Tammo!

Thank you very much for the write up. It is very interesting to have a little insight into the developer meeting and also to see your point of view.

I totally understand the dilema of developers with the lack of testing. I am not taking myself out of this. We need more people from the community to help out, which is for sure. But I think this also has a lot to do how things are communicated to the community. Most Limesurvey users (even the more involved ones) don't know what is going on behind the curtains. It is like a black box. Of course many might actually not be interested in it. But I am sure that there is quite a core of users that might want to have more involvement, but are not able to code. This doesn't mean they can't help, if the development team is interested (e.g. giving insights into other survey tools out there on the market, giving feedback about market tendencies that the developers might not have access to, help with the development of workflows and user interface, etc.).

Regarding testing: I think the end of the year, when most testing should have happend is the worst time of the year for most users. Businesses (especially in the area of market research are in their busiest time of the year) before Christmas. And then most people take off some time during the Christmas period, which also reduces the testing.

And there should be calls for help. People probably think: "There is a bunch of people testing that has a lot more experience than I have, so I can't really help". Which of course is totally wrong, but I am sure that many people believe this. So we need to make calls for help. Just a notice about a newly published release candidate might not be enough to motivate people and to make clear what is necessary for more releases. From time to time we need to tell people that they CAN help and that we WANT them to help. Because sometimes people might get the impression that this is a closed club. If Limesurvey wants people on board (even if they are not able to be a developer) it needs to make it clear and it needs to be open to it. No one will invest time if they don't feel that their help is welcome and that their help might be actually be of use and may have an impact on the project.

And we also need to accept that there will always be a lot of people that just don't care. They want to use the tool for free without having to pay anything and they don't want to give back. We will need to live with that, even if it is quite sad. But this is something many OSS projects have to suffer with.

But for those that want to help, that want to get involved, that want to donate money it needs to be made as easy as possible. E.g. at the moment I couldn't find a way to donate to the project (this might be a decision by the core team, I don't know), but my link in my signature doesn't work anymore and on request if there is such a feature somewhere I didn't hear back yet. So I guess I just take it out, because the way it is, it doesn't make sense.

I think at the moment Limesurvey is actually in one of the best positions it has ever been. There are full time developers with the Limesurvey GmbH, there are very dedicated community developers like Denis, etc., there are people like Tpartner who help with incredible work arounds where the Limesurvey core doesn't offer solutions, there are companies like yours that are willing to contribute to the project, there are companies/organizations that support new developments, etc.

As a project I think we just need to take more advantage of these rescources that are already there and bring the "normal" users in as well.

Sorry that this became such a long text again. But I think there is so much that could still be discussed. I just leave it there.

So here my little call out to all users:

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If you use Limesurvey, try to give something back. Be it helping others in the forum, translating LS, report bugs, sponsor new features, share your custom developments, offer inhouse development resources, give suggestions on the user interface, tell us how you use Limesurvey, let us knw how Limesurvey could be even better, etc.

LS 3 isn't too far away. Let's make it the greatest LS release ever!

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And to add to what holch wrote: giving back can also be: contribute some money to the project so the development team can develop some more.

Contributing money may also mean: buy confort updates keys, even if you do not need them. Your money is well spent and will keep the project healthy!

www.limesurvey.org/services

Tammo

Ha, and I just found the way how to donate! In my post the word "donate" was automatically linked to this page:

donate.limesurvey.org/

But Tammo is right: by purchasing the comfort update you are actually helping the project and you are getting something back as well. But we might need to clarify on where the money for comfort update purchases go (I would guess 100% to Limesurvey GmbH) and where the money for the donations go (I would guess also 100% to the Limesurvey GmbH).

Without an dedicated forum section about the project itself (combined with talk about LS websites and infrastructure) your posts get buried.
That way at least the people who care can easily find a place to communicate about the project itself.
Installation and Updates isn't a section to keep that discussion alive.