one more update:
I will make some changes to the code and will add step by step features which shall be added since Google extended their APIs.
Unfortunately the Google Assistant Integration (and for strange reason marzima) is great if it has all your wished features, but if it falls behind it is “not maintained, dead etc”.
Guys, trust me this is an interesting fact.
This is sometimes the bad side of being a maintainer. But this is maybe hard to feel if you re not in my situation. My proposal:
Just join forces, make PRs and get involved. I ve a baby, a startup +++ and try to develop as much as possible. But dont leave all to me, lets collaborate please.
openHAB GA Integration is not me, it is the community!
Is there anyone who can be promoted to a maintainer on that repo to review PRs and continue development? I don’t think anyone objects to your having a life and needing to step back from a super active role. But if you are the only one permitted to review and approve PRs than for all intents and purposes development will stop. That seems to be the root source of this thread. PRs were submitted but not reviewed and merged.
Yes that would be great.
But there were NO really PRs, maybe small ones but the willingness to contribute is not high.
So it is more feature requests than making PRs. I try to merge PRs when I find time.
Man issue is that folks shall involve themselves and if they make PRs and are involved it is naturally that they can maintain also the repo. It never meant to be exclusive.
I think this says it all. You need help, ofcouse!
I wish I could do something, unfortunatly my knowlegde is less than zero on these matters. The only thing I can do, is to provide help by testing, even if I have to rip off everything, I´m ready!
Well I would tend to disagree here. When you do some contributions to opensource, you develop a sixth sense on if it is worth doing something based on how active the project is. So I think it goes both ways - the more active the project, the more it will attract contributors.
And I do think that willingness exists, e.g. someone even rewrote everything in TypeScript with HomeGraph support GitHub - RayBa82/openhab-assistant
Same with me, I’ve forked the code, added support for action.devices.traits.MediaState and action.devices.traits.Volume by using the existing code paradigms (basically just copy-paste approach) and then thought ‘ugh this looks ugly, it will not be maintainable’ (e.g. 12 instances of same var failure = function function), I need to cleanup before doing a PR, created an issue to check if cleanup would be accepted, no response on that, thought a little bit more about how actually current tag approach is flexible and upon seeing how Alexa is implemented decided to start fresh with typescript and brand new approach. So that was my line of thinking .
It’s not that the implementation takes much work and time, I think I’ve managed to squeeze quite a bit of code in three evenings (GitHub - gytisgreitai/openhab-google-home) but rather that my openhab setup is quite primitive and I don’t have a lot of different devices, so I’m spending more time on thinking ok, well how does a actual Washing Machine binding look? How do people use TV source switching? Can I fast forward the Player? etc. Rather than writing the actual code.
They call this architecting and when done properly it saves a lot of time and countless issues and rewrites so it’s a very important step. When you’ve done this step and there are still issues just call it “agile”.
We are ready to test and help you.
We have simulated devices to work with.
As stated earlier it would be useful to have a “testing” GH integration for who is willing to test and help you, without breaking things for others. @MARZIMA had this in the beginning. That means having a “openHAB-testing” device/service to add to Google Home, where perhaps we can even see our own google->myhopenhab invocations logs on some webpage. Accounts for the testing part could be google testing accounts from volunteer testers just for tests (I remember there were issues of privacy with this approach, basically everyone was able to see all logs if I remember correctly).
Which devices / traits you do not have and would like to test?
There are also unresolved regression issues , for example the roller-shutter are inverted as many have reported. It worked before the last cloud update. Issue #105
Or thermostat not working correctly (also this was working before) See issue #92
You need to better look into the code. This is a copy of the existing code and using TypeScript.
Sorry even all of the class names and the overall architecture is the same. So it is rather a own version for own purposes, instead of being a PR and volunteering to join the project.
Why there is never an PR to add features to the existing repo. It is cause the project you mentioned is an own project and not an official repo.
Please dont spread wrong things!
In summary there was maybe one contributor helping out, even when the whole project was in the beginning. The only one really touching code actively was @pythen and everything else was more feature requests (look at the issues, even non related things).
Sorry, again you never did a PR. Just opening issues to “check” when people respond is not a active way of involving yourself.
@All, please be more fair and honest to yourselfs. Everybody is welcome to join efforts. But dont hide the fact that we have more people willing to consume instead of invest.
Mehmet - Please remember, this is not pointed at you in person… specially not from my point of view.
It´s an “openhab organisation” issue, (sorry I have to call it organisation, cause I cant get hold of the whole structure), which is causing the problems.
As said before, you have already done an awesome job. Nobody blame you. You need help, ofcouse.
According to the Governance of the openHAB Project you shouldn´t be working alone. It´s suppose to be a team work. (if/when possible I believe).
If it´s NOT possible to setup a team for this, then there really isn´t anything to do. But some part of the organisation (as well as the rest of us) should have a interest in at least trying to get this team build.
This is what I have been trying to say these last few days.
When some part of the development seems to be abandoned, there should be “someone” with an overview and in charge dealing with this, trying to get it up and running again, by searching for a new/more manintainers, or at least spread the word!
This is what I thought would be in an interest of the foundation. But I guess thats not the case, which is very surprising to me!
I think there is a language barrier here. Marzima seems quite frustrated about the situation as well. He is seeking help, cause he is all alone… Which he also pointed, isn´t a good situation for anyone. I agree with him, ofcouse.
I am not the person responsible to motivate the people. When I join projects I do it from my own, without people motivating me.
I wrote many times, that everybody is welcome to join.
What I dont like (and what I think you feel as a strange way) is that we should not give the community the feeling that there been many people willing to support with PRs. That was not the case and you can check that in the repo merged requests by your own.
Everybody is welcome to help. I will put energy into it, so that others will be able to contribute.
But it was never a matter of “people didnt get the chance to do so” rather the fact I cant name someone to start with.
But from the openhab project point of view, we should all feel some kind of responsible to motivate others to join the project. wether it beeing at user level, developer, maintainer or anything else. We all need eachother at all levels. Thats what make an open source project really strong, successfull and healthy.
And where do we look for these developers who are not already contributing to OH? If they are already contributing then they already know and/or are choosing to volunteer their time working on something else. If they are not already contributing then how do we find them? What do we say to them to ask them to contribute to this specific area as opposed to something else that interests them more?
In true opensource, why don’t you volunteer yourself to try and find these developers and encourage them to contribute? You feel strongly about it. You apparently have an idea about how to make it work.
It does no good to keep on saying the sky is falling and telling someone else what they need to do. If you see a problem, then volunteer to fix it or get involved in finding someone who can fix it. Anything else is just complaining. Instead of “the foundation should…” or the “the architecture counsel should…” or “the maintainers should…”, why not “I should…” or “I see a problem, let me take the lead in trying to solve it…” or “I see a problem, how can I help…”
Well probably An announcement would do no harm? “[Announcment] Maintainers for Google Home integration wanted” “Our main maintainer is overwhelmed with work and we are looking for someone o help him”. That would probably be useful for people like me who are not actively involved just to get an overview on what parts are more stale than other? Maybe this would encourage people to help more? Update on github readme would also do no harm.
Now, I don’t agree with Kim’s view that the Foundation should do this and that etc, but I also don’t a agree with the view that is is opensource, just let it be But, we all have our different takes on it
That is not what I said and it is not what I mean. Absolutely do NOT just let it be. If you see a problem, do what is in your power to try and help fix it. But that means more than posts on the forum telling other people what they should be doing.
I’ve no problem with an announcement or the like. And developers like Marzima are encouraged to make such announcements on github and in this forum and any other communications channel OH related. But I don’t think we can expect every maintainer and every developer to do so. I would like to think that’s the case but sometimes people just disappear. Sometimes lack of activity means everything is working, not that the code is abandoned. So posts like the OP are useful as well.
great ideas for sure… there is also a ‘help wanted’ tag in github as well
good point as well Rich. It took this thread to find out the status of the binding development.
@gytisgreitai it sounds like you have a done a lot of good work on the binding. Maybe you and Mehmet can collaborate on the binding or Mahmet can review your work and give you maintainers rights on the repository. Just throwing it out there. Sounds like he needs help for sure!
And finally @MARZIMA
Thank you for everything you have already contributed! Life gets busy, people’s interest change, like Rich said, sometimes they just disappear. If you never lifted a finger to further develop the binding, you have already made a huge contribution… THANK YOU!!!
I’m sorry for any comments made in this thread that diminished the contribution you have made.
If you look back, when we released the OH GA Integration there I mad an initial post and asked for contributors. It was the most seen topic and @rlkoshak and me decide to close it due it became a monster thread.
I always motivate the community and highlight that everybody can help and is highly welcome. Again, since the first release of the Google Assistant integration.
The normal way, and that’s how I joined openHAB cloud back than, was to offer my service and help. I wrote that I want to support and started taking small things. But this „motivation“ came from myself.
This is what I mean by nobody should motivate others. If you really want to contribute, there are many ways.
This is daily business and we have many great maintainers and contributers.
For this project, there was always a higher „usage“ community - which is amazing! But now we shall check how we can involve also more „contributer“ community.
I will play my role there, but I cant do magic and produce volunteers.
Looking forward for anyone to join.
@rlkoshak with the one big thread of GA, I noticed more things. Maybe it was a bad idea to close the thread. So I could reacted quicker?
But, we all have our different takes on it