iOS app community involvement

[jancborchardt]

Since some time now the iOS app as well as the iOS libraries are open source. There haven’t really been community contributions so far though, mainly work by @javiergonzper, @ggdiez & @nasli.

If anything prevents you from contributing then please let us know so we can work it out! :)

• cc @343max @dbeuchler @tillmzw @oehokie @kuriakinzeng @uvesten @hfye @steve0hh @thomersch @oktawave-code @k3a @decorhouse @wjacker2 @dsalunga @Kronusdark @jairoserrano @supportreq @icecreammatt @FezVrasta @ladrua @SOFRACS @angelovAlex @tlsion @supportreq @maulikg @jonocodes because you asked for the source code back then. What prevented you from contributing so far? :)
• cc @phedlund @kh0r @maltefiala @ramschmaerchen @wolfgang-s because you develop iOS apps for other parts of ownCloud (awesome! :)
• cc @tushevorg @aqxavier @vgezer @mnutt @rlindner @enoch85 because you opened pull requests to the iOS repo in the past – what held you off you from continuing?
• cc @eliburke @kant @dfjdejulio @x3ro cause you were involved in pull requests in the ios-library repo – are you interested in contributing to the iOS app as well?
• cc @marinotws @EmrahKK @harithahdasan @Keetveter @NasirMalik cause you opened issues in the ios or ios-library repos

You’re also very welcome in our IRC channel #owncloud-ios (freenode IRC) :)

(cc @MTRichards @rperezb @cmonteroluque @karlitschek @jospoortvliet)

[jancborchardt]

For those interested, we will have our ownCloud contributor conference end of August in Berlin. Everyone of you is invited!

[jospoortvliet]

And there is travel support available if it's finances which keep you from attending!

[tushevorg]

Personally I wanted to improve the translation, I was redirected to Transifex...

[rperezb]

Thanks, @tushevorg Yes, translations are handled from Transifex

[Baarten]

What further contributions did you hope to see from me? I opened a ticket more as a user than a developer. Main reason I'm not contributing to the code is because I consider myself to not have the coding skills (yet). I also don't have time left to aquire the skills or trying to contribute to the app/code and as this is voluntary I'm not feeling like to make time for it especially. I may contribute in the future if I have aquired the skills and have the time left, but on the other hand this isn't the only interesting open source project.

[dfjdejulio]

Am I interested in further contributions, at all, ever? Yes! But what I'm primarily interested in may not match the focus of the maintainers, and this isn't a great moment for me to dive into this (I'm currently beta testing four different operating systems, one of which is iOS).

The main thing I personally want to work on is making the libraries portable so they're usable under OS X as well. For me, they work more nicely with Cocoa projects and other Apple frameworks than the cross-platform library I usually see used there.

I think that's what my pull requests related to. When I can reasonably submit more that don't interfere with operation on iOS and improve portability to OS X, I intend to do that. Later. After iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 are released.

[jospoortvliet]

It is all up to you, folks ;-)

In the end - this app is open source, that means it is as much yours as it is ours. If you want to take it somewhere and put in effort, that's awesome. If not - that's cool, too...

[jancborchardt]

@mnutt @rlindner @enoch85 also looping in you as new people who contributed to the repository. Did you feel there’s any barriers to entry? Or does anything keep you from continuously contributing?

[jancborchardt]

So I did a bunch of things in order to get more contributors involved:

• Improved the look of the repository/readme to make it more attractive for prospective contributors: https://github.com/owncloud/ios#owncloud-ios-app
• Put the app on the Wikipedia List of free and open-source iOS applications
• Added the app to Open Source iPhone and iPad Apps
• Added second flame to ownCloud entry in open source iOS apps repo: https://github.com/dkhamsing/open-source-ios-apps/pull/265
• Contacted http://opensourceiphonesoftware.com to put ownCloud on there: https://twitter.com/jancborchardt/status/723520642595852288
• Contacted https://maniacdev.com/2010/06/35-open-source-iphone-app-store-apps-updated-with-10-new-apps to put ownCloud on the list
• Asked some friends & open source iOS devs on Twitter how we can improve: https://twitter.com/jancborchardt/status/723533578575994881

What else can we do? Also, remember to join us on IRC #owncloud-ios (on freenode IRC).

[dfjdejulio]

I do want to contribute more in the future, particularly to the library, but I've got a lot of different projects that need some work, and some of the things I had wanted to do aren't quite as important anymore. (For example, I used to want to improve support for home-grown CAs, but now I'm instead using "Let's Encrypt" and encouraging others to do the same.)

Hm... maybe a "two birds with one stone" plan for me would be to try to incorporate support for the ownCloud library into my tvOS app.

Hey, actually, that makes me think of a way to promote awareness that I didn't see on your list -- is there a list of other apps that incorporate the open source ownCloud iOS library anywhere?

[enoch85]

I just fixed the issue_template.md - nothing fancy. :)

[jancborchardt]

is there a list of other apps that incorporate the open source ownCloud iOS library anywhere?

@dfjdejulio great point, I think there is none.

@nasli @mRoRo @javiergonzper are you aware which apps use the library? We should list them in the library readme!

Also cc @eliburke @kant @x3ro @marinotws @EmrahKK @harithahdasan @Keetveter @NasirMalik who were contributing on the library.

[mnutt]

If it were up to me, the iOS libraries are where I would focus most of the open source effort. While I'm very appreciative that this project is licensed as open source and accepts outside contributions, it seems like iOS development and open source (specifically GPL) are at odds. A number of other GPL apps were taken out of the App Store due to the redistribution restrictions. Owncloud gets around this because of its CLA and owning the copyright to everything in the project, but from everyone else's perspective it's effectively closed source because the code they contribute can only be published by Owncloud, Inc. Which is fine for now, but were they to decide to unpublish it (or start charging, like Owncloud Android) the code wouldn't really be usable for anything else. The iOS libraries, being MIT-licensed, seem like a better place to build a contributor community.

[rperezb]

@dfjdejulio hey, @owncloud/ios-developers started working on the tviOS have a look at https://github.com/owncloud/ios-library/tree/tviOS_test