Once tickets have been reviewed and approved by Development Prioritization, they become available to be worked on by developers. The Program Team regularly reviews prioritized tickets to match them with available development resources. Just like many our the archives we serve, we have a substantial backlog due to the size of the community and the relative level of demand for ArchivesSpace compared to the finite resources of a relatively small non-profit organization.
Sources of development include staff developers, developers from Registered Service Providers, contractors (individuals or firms), and community developers. While many people contribute to the development process, and in some cases volunteers contribute code, in most releases of ArchivesSpace, over 95% of the code comes from staff developers or those contracted by the team.
Tickets vary greatly in complexity. They may be something as simple as changing the wording of a label or as complex as reconceptualizing a whole area of the application. It is important to note that even if a request sounds simple it may not be when it comes to writing the code to fulfill it. In selecting approved tickets to be worked on the team needs to match them to the capacity we have through staff developers and outside contractors. Because of the complexity and specialized domain of ArchivesSpace, there are many tickets that require sustained effort and expertise, as well as flexibility and ready access to community members in an iterative implementation process.
Tickets that are truly straightforward and do not require as much expertise sometimes get worked on more quickly than higher priority tickets because the expertise required successfully complete them is substantially less. (If it helps, think of this as similar to making decisions about who can work on what in your archives, and why certain piles get worked down more quickly than others.)
Larger projects are identified on the roadmap