how can we make it easy for people to keep up to date with Loomio progress

Right now, doing a lot of reporting is something that seems too expensive for us in terms of time commitment.

I would really like us to be doing monthly update blog posts at least, but I personally don't have capacity and I don't see anyone else on the core team with capacity either....

@richarddbartlett any thoughts on that?

Hrrmm. It's cool. Chris just wasn't looking in the right places.

We're getting more contributors than ever via github, and our roadmap is more detailed and regularly updated than ever.

The roadmap and github links have been out there in crowdfunder updates, and on the site for a long time. This conversation will just serve to help others who may have missed them.

It can feel like progress is slow if you're just looking at the app..I understand that. Expect a super big app update in the next weeks and months.

@christaklis if you want to facilitate this being possible...

let the developers from around the world to upload their widgets/features and each group or user activates what they want from those widgets/features

We would support it! Unfortunately that's a lot harder than you seem to think...

There's also https://twitter.com/loomio

Hey @christaklis - I did fork the "core" and have added features and removed some for my organizations private installation of loomio. By doing that, I was able to find out a lot about the system as a whole and contributed a few bugfixes.

I understand your frustration - I faced it too. This is why I tried to document the process as well as I could.

It sounds to me like you are asking for a type of plugin system, and from what I understand, the way things seem to be moving are in interoperability and data federation. Compare: https://www.loomio.org/g/exAKrBUp/open-app-ecosystem

In this sense, loomio might evolve into something that is more like a plugin for other systems. I think this makes more sense than modularizing every aspect of loomio because after several years of development there is quite a high degree of complexity...

@alanna of course it will be the hardest thing that loomio developers will have to deal with.

@denjello yes something like a plugin system. I think Loomio will evolve quicker if developers create their styles/themes/plugins/features and each user or group can activate which of them they want. But that means also that must be a UI, because not all users know of programming and activating the style. So it must be like a plugin system which they are installed in Loomio servers and users/groups activate them through the loomio interface with 1-click.

Otherwise we always we will wait if the Loomio developers have imagination to move Loomio forward and to be more complex in the future.

@naught101 i understand that my post was little offensive, but there are no news so long. I am not developer and i am not every-day at the github. At least put one note-news on the top of the loomio that the development continues.

I am covered with the answer of @richarddbartlett

Part of what we’ve been working on is an API, which will make it much easier for other developers to build cool features and make them available to anyone that wants to use them.

But i insist on put some times a note. A pin note to loomio interface what it is happening. Not all users use the github, or other platforms but just Loomio.

Dude, these people are not getting paid for this, they are just doing it for the love of it. You don't have the right to insist on anything from them - they don't owe you anything.

You misunderstood me @christaklis - Although I do not work for the non-profit company that created Loomio known as Loomio Co-operative Limited, I am involved in its development because I participate in discussions like this and contribute (a little bit of) code.

That said, I think it is unlikely (if not impossible) that Loomio will turn into the system of core and plugins that you envision. Although setting up and managing a system that only involves installing core and activating a few plugins is well-known and well-loved (wordpress, drupal, joomla, typo3, etc.), those systems exist to serve MANY different needs of many different types of users.

That said, it will probably be possible sooner or later to integrate Loomio as a service into your content management system. If you don't know what I mean, then it is very likely that we are speaking about the same thing without using the same words.

According to the license attached to the codebase, Loomio is GPL3, which means it is free software, as in you have the liberty to do with it as you like. As @naught101 implied, it is not necessarily free as in price.

The fact that the team behind Loomio at Enspiral is actually offering a free service based on their software is by no means a justification for strong-arming them into changing their software in ways that you seem to feel are important. That is not what open source contributions are about.

Don't take this personally, but seeing as you are not a developer, I suggest you find one to help you understand what you are asking for.

@denjello we try to say the same thing but with different words.

That what i am asking is what you said that it's my envision.
I stongly agree that we are all different users with different types of what we need especially in the groups we participate. That's why i want Loomio to improve these plugins.

Loomio might become a plugin for other software. That's my point. :)