Release a stable version 7.x-1.3

I'm definitely in favor of seeing a new release. It's been over a year now since there was a stable release, and it's been good to see that the dev version was updated more recently (2013-Sep-30).

69k websites are using this module as of January 18th. With a community this large, it should be possible for this project to get the resources it needs to maintain this code base very well.

There are only 30 D7 bugs in the issue queue, but some of these have been open for over 2 years. Not having some feedback from the community can have a real impact for new users.

I do think that there should be incentives to ensure that people who are contributing to it are recognized. There should be some motivation to go through the issue queue and see that reports that people have made are acknowledged, repeatable, fixable and eventually closed. This is a lot of work, but there should be some acknowledgement done for those who are tending the issue queue, but I don't think that's enough.

I've blogged about the use of Flattr & Gittip. The latter brought up some great discussions about initiatives like Top Shelf Modules and DrupalFund.us.

Adoption of any of those platforms seems to be pretty slow though. Gittip has the greatest acceptance on d.o because there is at least a form on each users Profile page to add it in, and yet, there has been marginal increase in the adoption or donation rates https://www.gittip.com/for/drupal/

I tried to highlight how Gittip could be incorporated into d.o's issue queue in order to provide incentives to individual contributors. From feedback there, I decided to look at how Corporate logos could be incorporated into the issue queues (even for anonymous users).

None of these solutions is without it's problems. Some of these solutions will work better to support some projects than others. I think there are probably hundreds of other ways to help shape participation in the Drupal community such that end users, developers, designers and Drupal shops are able to find easier ways to contribute back. But I think we need to get the conversation moving about how to see that important projects like this get the support that they need to see that they are properly resourced.

There's a place to discuss Drupal.org improvements in GDO but there isn't a lot of active participation there.

Ultimately, what kinds of functionality/UI changes would help make this module easier to? For folks who are active contributors, what would help you? Each project may have it's own ideas about how to best motivate the community that uses it's code. It might be that folks are confident that there's no need to change anything, and perhaps they are right.

I would like to know when we can expect to see the next stable release of this module and think it is great when there is a meta issue queue to gather the issues that should go into that next release. I couldn't find this, but if it doesn't already exist it can be started here.

These are already marked RTBC:
#1372310: Drupal 7 path callback vs uri callback
#252378: Email address label appearing when no email is entered

Thanks @killua99. I know that we can intentionally shape the d.o community to make it easier to get the support that module maintainers need. I don't know exactly what that looks like, but I think that as a group of developers we should be able to experiment to determine what works and helps make Drupal's community better & it's code stronger.

Hey guys, I unfortunately don't have access to the maintainer list on this module. Could you make an issue in the project maintainers queue about this? I give a +1 to giving either of you access on it.

Hi all,

I've just put the 7.x-1.3 on my todo list, but I'm always happy if other developers are willing to help maintaining the module. I have to admit that I have almost no time to do it.

@RobLoach
Also granted you 'Administer maintainers' permission :-)

I can't be a co-maintainer, but feel i need to chime in. I was initially concerned about this module being "Actively Maintained" when there are no commits in over a year and a bunch of open tickets. However, there have been commits to -dev, so why doesn't it reflect that?! And it seems you guys are actively working the issue queue recently, and I've also had no issues that I can recall with the current recommended release for very basic implementations, but just thought I'd chime in that I was concerned at first glance about the module's status, but upon digging deeper find that this module doesn't present any hazard to use that I can tell. But a new release would be good. Thx!