Mobile App

robcohen

Is there any reason that Zotero is being so hushed about development of the iOS app?

This is a nonprofit, no? Wouldn't it make sense to have transparency on the mobile development process?

I honestly cannot fathom why there isn't a public github repo with regular status updates on the project. I understand it's probably only one person (maybe no one?) that is working on it, but this project just feels like it's being needlessly kept in secret.

dstillman

The app is still being developed. When it's ready, we'll announce it, publish a GitHub repo, and gratefully welcome feedback and external contributions. Until then, we don't have anything to share, which is a fairly unremarkable position for an organization building a new product to take, even for something that will be open-sourced later. (I'm not sure why you think being nonprofit is relevant here.)

We know a lot of people are waiting for the app, but developing it in public isn't going to bring it about any faster.

(In the meantime, while not a replacement for the native app, the new beta web library offers a much better experience on mobile.)

robcohen

> We know a lot of people are waiting for the app, but developing it in public isn't going to bring it about any faster.

I disagree, there are plenty of people, myself included, that would be happy to contribute time to the project assuming it had some reasonable open source licensing.

It would also be helpful for those of us that rely on zotero to have idea on how development is going, so we can properly assess what our organizations may be able to commit to at a later point.

The defense you are using (it’s unremarkable because others are doing it too) doesn’t make much sense to me. Since when is “others are doing it too” a reasonable defense. What possible damage could there be to Zotero’s interests by being more transparent?

Please understand that I am taking this position because I really like Zotero, and having zero feedback on status for iOS doesn’t seem to serve anyone’s interests.

adamsmith

FWIW, the development history of the new Zotero web library suggests that your empirical claims here are simply incorrect. It was a much requested feature; it was entirely developed on a public github repository; yet even people quite familiar with Zotero could infer little about the likely release timeline of the project; and it received exactly 0 external PRs.

(also, your use of "defend" is more than a little unfortunate. Maybe re-think your approach to communication in an open source community if your first post requires a defense)

robcohen

Notable that you still haven’t addressed why Zotero shouldn’t be more transparent. You seem to suggest that no one will care if you are. I care. You seem to be arguing that no one will contribute and therefore Zotero should make no effort to increase transparency. The logic there just doesn’t follow for me.

Not sure why you have an issue with the word defend, perhaps you read that as something it wasn’t.

I understand your frustration with the open source community.

I’ll tell you what though, if you guys have 501c3 status in the US, I’ll happily donate a few hundred dollars if it’s earmarked towards paying for a developer to make regular updates for iOS. Is that enough of a commitment for you?

dstillman

Again, once the app is released, it will be open source, like nearly everything else we produce, and you'll be welcome to contribute and provide feedback. Until then, we have no interest in involving the community in building an app from scratch. We think it would take more time, not less; we don't want feedback until we've experimented and actually built something; we don't want to make any promises, explicit or implicit, about when the app will be ready or what will be in the initial version; and we just don't want to work in public until we've decided our work is ready for public consumption. My point about this being an entirely standard practice is just that things rarely get built the way you're suggesting. You build something, and when you think you have something to share with the world, you release it, and possibly open-source it.

I appreciate that you care about Zotero enough to complain about this, but what you're asking for frankly just isn't something you have any right to expect. If you need to evaluate Zotero on what's currently on offer, that's totally fair. Currently, that doesn't include an iOS app.

When we have more to share, we will.

robcohen

Thank you for your thoughtful reply.

I understand I have no right to expect more transparency, but just because I don’t have a right doesn’t mean I cannot request it. I never claimed that Zotero developers owed anybody anything. My only claim was that it would serve the project’s interests to be more transparent.

That said, we’re kicking a dead horse. I appreciate all of the hard work that the Zotero developers have put in, but I am disappointed in the lack of transparency. You can be more transparent without making promises.

I look forward to seeing the Zotero app come out.