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| <title>The Voice Of the NetBeans Community</title> |
| <meta name="AUTHOR" content="Tinuola Awopetu"> |
| <meta name="description" content="The Voice of the Community is a program to organize, specify and prioritize the |
| various needs of the community"> |
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| <h1>NetBeans Voice of the Community (VOC) Program<br> |
| </h1> |
| <p><em>By Tushar V. Joshi<br> |
| <br> |
| </em></p> |
| <h2>What is VOC?<br> |
| </h2> |
| <div style="padding: 0pt 0pt 7px 7px; width: 200px; float: right; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">VOC monitors the pulse of the NetBeans community.<br> |
| </div> |
| <p> |
| As the NetBeans |
| community grows, identifying, prioritizing and managing the needs of the community becomes more and more crucial. The |
| <a href="http://wiki.netbeans.org/VoiceOfCommunity">Voice of the Community (VOC)</a> |
| program was started to address these tasks. Initiated by NetBeans |
| Community Manager Jiri Kovalsky and comprised of three captains, VOC's |
| main activities are to monitor the various NetBeans |
| channels such as the mailing lists, forums, and blogs, to take the pulse of |
| the NetBeans community, and to evaluate how concerns should be handled. VOC |
| functions as a link between |
| the NetBeans community and NetBeans-Sun Microsystems management--a |
| conduit for voices and ideas to be heard and a driver for transparency.<br> |
| </p> |
| <p>To launch VOC, Jiri solicited applications from members of the |
| NetBeans mailing lists. Many responded, and three candidates were |
| chosen: Michel Graciano |
| (Brazil), Annabel Melongo (USA) and |
| Tushar Joshi (India). The |
| diversity of the team reflects the international range of the NetBeans |
| community. With team members on four continents, VOC not only provides |
| continuous monitoring of the NetBeans channels, but also brings varied cultural and geographical perspectives to the table.<br> |
| </p> |
| <br> |
| <h2>How does VOC work?<br> |
| </h2> |
| <div style="padding: 0pt 0pt 7px 7px; width: 200px; float: right; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Three hot-topic issues are discussed at VOC meetings.<br> |
| </div> |
| <p>The VOC team meets every three weeks. Each captain selects an issue |
| from the channels they monitor. A chosen issue also needs to |
| have been filed in Issuezilla |
| with a valid reporter and clear description of how to reproduce it. At |
| VOC meetings, captains have to explain why an issue is relevant, be able |
| to reproduce it, and provide the issue's record (typically a Nabble |
| forum thread link). If an issue is aligned with NetBeans's and Sun's |
| technical priorities, |
| the VOC captains and Jiri take a vote to decide on implementation.<br> |
| </p> |
| <p>VOC meetings are usually held via |
| online chats; the current platform is the <a href="http://kenai.com/projects/nbvoc">Kenai project for |
| VOC</a>. |
| At the close of each meeting, actions items are assigned to each |
| captain, and meeting transcripts are posted to the<span style="text-decoration: underline;"> </span><a href="http://wiki.NetBeans.org/VoiceOfCommunity">VOC wiki page</a> days later. Besides posted issues, there are also high-priority |
| issues or sudden defects in the NetBeans IDE that are discussed on the <a href="mailto:voc@netbeans.org">VOC mailing list</a>, |
| and fixes are automatically made available in release updates.<br> |
| <br> |
| </p> |
| <h2>VOC Captains on why the program matters.<br> |
| </h2> |
| <div style="padding: 0pt 0pt 7px 7px; width: 200px; float: right; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">“VOC has given me a sense of responsibility...”</div> |
| <p>The program has benefits not only for the community, but also for |
| its captains. The community gets a channel to provide feedback and |
| introduce new ideas and requests to NetBeans engineers, and the VOC |
| captains are given the opportunity to see first-hand how the NetBeans |
| project is shaped technically and conceptually. The captains though think that VOC has given them much more.<br> |
| </p> |
| <h4>For Annabel Melongo, purpose.<br> |
| </h4> |
| <p>"<i>The VOC program has given me a sense of |
| responsibility and organization. Responsibility because I know that |
| what |
| I'm doing impacts the needs of a |
| lot of developers. Organization because I have to monitor lists, |
| forums, blogs, make notes, organize |
| my time and my email folders and ask people to file issues. Sometimes |
| if I don't check the lists on the weekend I feel as if I'm letting |
| people down. Now I monitor the lists at least ONCE |
| during the weekend</i>".<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br> |
| </p> |
| <h4>For Tushar Joshi, helping others stay informed. <br> |
| </h4> |
| <p>"<i>I have started spending |
| more time on the NetBeans FAQ and |
| tutorial pages. One habit I have formed is to assume all the |
| information is available in the FAQ |
| and tutorial sites and whenever community members are not able to get the information, send |
| them to the correct page as it is usually available in the site |
| somewhere. If it is not available |
| then I try to find out whether there is any issue already filed and |
| ask them to vote for it.</i>"<br> |
| </p> |
| <h4>For Michel Graciano, an enriched experience.<br> |
| </h4> |
| <p>"<i>Helping the |
| community by ensuring that the NetBeans team knows the users' needs, from the |
| community's point of view, is the best feeling I get from this work.</i>"<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br> |
| </span></p> |
| <p> |
| </p> |
| <h4><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>For Jiri Kovalsky, an engaged community.</h4> |
| <p>"<i>I perceive VOC as a true dialogue with the |
| NetBeans community. |
| The VOC Captains get regular updates on development progress, plans, |
| important issues, and we receive feedback about what is bothering |
| NetBeans users during |
| release cycles. Of course NetBeans engineers can't fix everything, |
| but we can also turn to <a href="http://wiki.netbeans.org/NetFIX">NetFIX |
| developers</a>! And VOC meeting transcripts are public which clearly supports |
| our goal to have a true open source |
| project..</i>"</p> |
| <p> |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| As these four voices attest, VOC can be an interactive and satisfying |
| experience, leading to stronger relationships within the NetBeans |
| community and ties to the NetBeans team. <br> |
| </p> |
| <p>Do you want to be focused, informed, involved and engaged? Consider trying out for the next NetBeans VOC season! |
| VOC |
| stewardship is a year-long term, and the next team will be selected in |
| January 2010. </p> |
| <h2>Recent VOC Achievements</h2> |
| <h3>Fixed Issues:</h3> |
| <ol> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=47233">Votes should not be removed</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=156183">Make projects usable during "project initializing"</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=149798">NullPointerException at SimpleTargetChooserPanelGUI.updateCreatedFolder</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=133943">Make the IDE usable during scanning</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=159464">GSP coloring not preserved when configured</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=150510">NullPointerException at python...invokeAction</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=152894">Edit/Highlight loop causes 5s-10s EDT pauses</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=13857">Cutting/Copying vertical blocks of text</a> |
| (workaround with plugin )</li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=161367">Scanning projects task never terminates</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=157692">Latest patches modify build-impl.xml, setting path to "/does/not/exist"</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=123169">Groovy debugging support</a> (workaround available)</li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=167262">Output window hyperlinks don't work like they used to</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=168061">[67cat] Getter generation working wrong for Boolean fields</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=158812">Inconvenient debugging JUnit test since the fix of issue 158068 and 119922</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=168380">Not able to submit breakpoint : No executable location available</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=46813">NetBeans does not support UNC paths</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=13063">Option to remove whitespace at end of line</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=26513">[60cat] Accumulate votes over dependencies</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=153753">Publish JavaFX Support plugin on Stable 6.5 UC</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=161033">[67cat] ClassCastException: ... HtmlParserResult</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=165170">[67cat] Opened files full of errors after restart</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=144112">[65cat] Support a alias for database connection</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=160747">[67cat] Continue button is disabled when on breakpoint</a> |
| </li> |
| </ol> |
| <h3>Candidates For Implementations:</h3> |
| <ol> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=134990">Source path modification initiated from build script starts scanning</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=119818">search results sort buttons gone</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=63953">Show TODO statements at error stripe</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=105075">Provide an Entity/Relationship Diagram tool</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=121950">Wrong error badges umbrella</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=159293">Adding a Jar with right-click in Files View</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=143771">"Add JAR/Folder" must start relative to project</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=51733">Split add JAR/folder into two separate buttons</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=144112">Support a alias for database connection</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=124169">Formatter Defaults for "Code Conventions for the Java Programming Language"</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=100758">Implement beans refactoring</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=165245">Class index is not available until its root is first touched by java indexer</a> |
| </li> |
| </ol> |
| <h3>WONTFIX Issues:</h3> |
| <ol> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=164441">Project scanning continues even if the folder is removed from Libraries</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=154974">java debugger crashing</a></li> |
| <li><a href="https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=160531">Generating getters for a Boolean makes a getXxxx method instead of a isXxxx method</a> |
| </li> |
| </ol> |
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