Why is Kanboard Core so Difficult to Collaborate on?!

Having to justify obvious changes is just wrong in the open source world.

191 open issues… even bugs are being ignored!

https://github.com/kanboard/kanboard/security/policy

This is very discouraging!

Over the years I’ve become more and more puzzled by the core kanboard developers. They are not very transparent and they don’t seem to hesitate to make large changes without communicating with the people who use kanboard. They have twitter and mastodon accounts but have only ever posted about new releases for years. And now it looks like they neglect important changes like bug fixes and do not accept ā€œfreeā€ additions such as your PR. It’s hard to understand their motivations.

Now and then I poke around looking for a roadmap, but I’ve not found one.

Forking an established project like this on github is fraught with peril, but perhaps it’s worth considering.

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It annoyed me that I have to justify back and forth the inclusion of the svg icon.

  • I purposely kept the filename different, in case that would be an issue of ā€˜replacing the file’
  • How obvious is it that Inkscape has added bloated code to the svg, which is bloated code, meaning it is not needed for the SVG to render, it is only used by Inkscape if the file is edited in Inkscape again.
  • More importantly, look at all the core icons included… the svg is using a basic text font, like a cowboy. My svg version was an identical copy of the png versions so there i consistency.
  • You say ā€˜core kanboard developers’… there is just one!

I wish I could fork it and maintain it, the numbers show how high the demand is, meaning how useful it is to people in the (mainly) professional world. Problem is, I am not a developer so I dont know much about databases and security related code etc. Without @creecros, my first plugin would never have been published.

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Because it’s in maintenance mode. Why the heck should this have a roadmap?
The main development is closed, period.

And you have keep in mind:

There is no fancy user interface, Kanboard focuses on simplicity and minimalism. The number of features is voluntarily limited.

But we all have the chance to write plugins for any desperately missing feature. No problem.
Personally, I have tried other Kanban-Board apps, but always came back to Kanboard.

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Agree, with both.

My only wish would be, that we could get more collaboration on plugins.

I’m glad I could help anyone and everyone I could with getting plugins built, but I’m no pro at this.

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I wouldn’t be so hard on fred either. That guy is pretty much a 1 man show, he deserves a lot of good vibes.

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Maintenance mode is reworded now… to be honest it should never have existed as releases after that have not always been ONLY bug fixes. And if they were, then Fred needs to address, fix or close the bugs reported since 2019/2020 in the repository. To state in the readme, that all bugs and security issues will be addressed once a month in a maintenance roadmap would be good at least. A roadmap doesnt have to be just for new features. Right now, Fred just picks and chooses, then ignores if he feels it shouldnt be included.

There is no fancy user interface, Kanboard focuses on simplicity and minimalism. The number of features is voluntarily limited.

  • This is just a lazy text that Fred put for his own usage but when I software project has x00000 stars and comes up across other websites and people do reviews and tutorials on it, Fred needs to wake up and take some responsibility and acknowledge that his work is appreciated and popular. I mean some businesses, offices, professionals run their working life on Kanboard.

Plugins are VERY VERY hard because of VERY VERY poor documentation.

Personally, I have tried other Kanban-Board apps, but always came back to Kanboard.

  • I feel the same, I want to leave but there is no other viable option. I personally think the core developer knows that and takes sad advantage of that!
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but there are x developers screaming to offer help through issues, posts, plugins… and Fred just wants to stay silent and not accept any help.

Its not about being hard, its about recognising that if you make a tool to deal with productivity, then the tool should be fully maintained and I dont think it is.

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That guy is pretty much a 1 man show

I am the same, yet I find the time to keep in touch with the Kanboard community.

Be happy that you can, maybe he cannot.

I can understand that, but that is exactly why Fred can build a team of collobarators to manage the repository.

by the way, I am not so happy that I find the time lol, I code out of depression.

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Kanboard is not really in maintenance mode. New automatic events have been added and adjusted in the last few releases. Experimental support for a new database backend was added. Support for new file formats has been added. All of these are new features, above and beyond maintenance, which is usually confined to bug fixes, dependency upgrades, and maybe cosmetic changes. There’s some kind of plan behind which features are added and which are not.

All a roadmap would do is explain this, why some features are added when they are added, and why other features are not. It’s not a heavy lift. A one page bullet list would suffice. It’s not legally binding or anything, just a document that says ā€œhere are my thoughts about what’s coming in Kanboard.ā€

I get that if it’s a one-man show maybe he’s just tinkering with it when he feels like it and adding what he feels like adding. That makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is not accepting changes freely offered by others, or not accepting at least some amount of feedback (e.g., several people don’t like the new documentation, but he seems to be forging ahead with it anyway). Realistically it’s not a one-man tinkerer’s project anymore; it’s a project that’s fairly widely used, and at least according to some folks, best in breed. The one-man show mentality inhibits the project.

Here you got the point. It’s his baby, and he decides. Once I was in a similar situation.

Oh my! You are welcome to use mine! :wink:

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Oh wow thank you! I’ve been using the Internet Archive to get to the old version of the documentation site but this is much better!

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Maybe you know that you can replace the location of the built-in docs in your config.php:

define('DOCUMENTATION_URL_PATTERN', 'https://abu.codeberg.page/kanboard-doc/');
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omg why have you been hiding this… this is excellent, thanks!

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It’s of minor importance…

Here you got the point. It’s his baby, and he decides. Once I was in a similar situation.

Realistically it’s not a one-man tinkerer’s project anymore; it’s a project that’s fairly widely used, and at least according to some folks, best in breed. The one-man show mentality inhibits the project.

  • I agreed with this