Difficulty in Getting a CVS Account

I have just experienced the difficulty of applying for a CVS account on drupal.org. Having a CVS account I would be able to host my Drupal Photopic module on their website. Unfortunately my application was turned down ...

The process of applying for a CVS is in a way straightforward - i.e. create a normal account, login, then go to form where you fill in the required fields. Then, a moderator will go through your application and if everything is in order, enables your CVS account. If only it were that easy!

There are very strict documented guidelines which one needs to follow, such as uniqueness and originality, code that adheres to another set of guidelines, and having a functional working demo of the submitted module. There are a number of advantages, one of them being the quality of all the modules hosted on drupal.org.

The strict guidelines mention that any submitted module must be unique and that is where I think the problem is. If another module exists which has the same functionality or features, then the submitted module cannot exist on the site. My module was turned down because the moderator said that another module has all the functionality, but what seems to have not been noticed is the way my module works. It uses a different way of loading the images.

I tend to agree, if only the other module was simple to install and just works out of the box with minimal configuration. It is also mentioned in the other module's feature list that it does need some regular maintenance as well, for example to clear the images temporary files folder. Yes, I did mention a cache folder there.

Photopic does not cache any images, does not have to synchronise anything and does not require maintenance apart from upgrading it when a later version is released. It directly links to the images, which results in a lot of less data traffic on the user website.

I think that the filtering process can still work to make sure the modules are of high quality standards, but they need to change the uniqueness part of the deal. I think that they should allow modules to be hosted even if they have similar features. It would be healthy for the Drupal community to have more modules therefore more choices.

I am sure there are other people who have great ideas for modules but give up early on when they find closed doors. This made me think...can I do something about it? ...Hmmmm....

BTW, for those of you who may be worried - I am still continuing my work on Photopic and hosting it on my official site :)