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Subject: Interview request for developers working on forges
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My name is Loïc Dachary. I'm a software developer and daily user of software forges for the past twenty years. In 2001 I created Savannah[0] by forking SourceForge and I still have a vivid memory of how challenging it can be to work on the codebase of a forge. This year I thought it would be interesting to allow forges to talk to each other (i.e. be federated instead of isolated) so that people can use the forge they like best instead of being forced to use the forge on which the project is hosted. The project is called fedeproxy and a grant was approved[1] to work on it. The first order of business is to conduct User Research[2] to figure out what to do. With an open mind: the conclusion may lead us on an unexpected path.
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* Why do you need my help?
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The ultimate goal of the fedeproxy project is to become redundant and disappear. When it becomes possible to use a forge to contribute to a software project hosted on another forge, there will be no need for a proxy. As a forge developer you are first in line to make that happen. We need to understand how communication with other forges is currently implemented (and why) to ensure fedeproxy fills a gap instead of re-implementing the wheel.
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As a forge developer, you can help by taking part in a 60 minutes interview[3] conducted by a member of the UX team.
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* What happens after the interview?
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A transcript of the conversation will be sent for you to approve. You also get to decide if it is published for everyone to see or if it is only shared among the people participating in the UX team.
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* How will this help me?
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With these interviews we can better understand the mental model of a developer working with multiple forges and adapt the conceptual model of fedeproxy accordingly[4]. This research may also be useful to you, as forge developer, to better understand how developers relate to your forge when they need to communicate with other forges.
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* OK, I want to help. Now what happens?
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Scheduling an interview is simple: just reply to this message and we will schedule a video-conference.
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Sincerely,
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[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Savannah
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[1] https://fedeproxy.eu/blog/2021/03/31/dapsi-step0/
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[2] https://forum.fedeproxy.eu/t/preparing-the-user-research/71
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[3] https://lab.fedeproxy.eu/fedeproxy/ux/-/wikis/forge-developer
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[4] https://uxmag.com/articles/the-secret-to-designing-an-intuitive-user-experience |