Hi all! Ian Piumarta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Goran! > > > - Let's hope Ian takes better care of sucking up contributions from > > the > > early adopters. > [SNIP of good explanation of types of contribs] > In these cases I think a fork is a more complex issue; if it's the best > way to share significant experimental changes with the rest of the > world, faced with my anally-retentive death grip on my repo, maybe > it's not such a bad idea. ;)
...which (the "grip") is why I really recommend Mercurial - it enables us all to branch easily AND to make sure contribs easily gets fed back etc. (Darcs is slightly better at cherry picking - but it can go bonkers sometimes so I am not using it myself anymore) > > - ...AND/OR let's hope Ian makes it easy for early adopters to > > contribute directly! > > I doubt I'll be giving out write tokens to my trunk to many people. > (If it's important to anyone to have a swarm of uncoordinated random > committers, maybe a fork is what they need. ;-) No, that is not important - but it is important to try to get the very few people that really CAN contribute (like Michael) to actually feel that they easily can do it. Again, a distributed SCM + a swiki with nice lists of available repos would make this easily doable. In such a scenario I can track (by pulling) Michael, or you, or both etc. > FWIW, delegation and autonomy will be better in the near future when > subsystems start to take on a life of their own and turn into real > sub-projects. > > > I would like to see a dedicated wiki. > > This we can do. (We might even want to make it a Swiki.) Do you see > any disadvantage to its being hosted at vpri? No, I don't see any disadvantage with that - presuming that VPRI really wants this project to be open, see below. > > I would also love to see Ian switching to Mercurial thus making it > > VERY > > easy for people like Michael to both branch off and to contribute > > back - > > or for Ian to receive contributions. A distributed SCM like > > Mercurial is > > vastly superior to SVN in this regard and Mercurial is really, really > > nice. > > I'd certainly consider this if/when the 'pressure' from other repos > becomes significant. Right now SVN has the advantages that (1) it's > already installed on my server, (2) it's already serving up content > via a multitude of methods that were not entirely out-of-the-box > happy experiences, and (3) it's where all of my source code lives, > COLA and otherwise. Fair enough. > (Are you sure you want me to switch to Mercurial? 'git' would seem > more in keeping with my character. ;-) I know - but Mercurial is more cross platform and most people think it is much easier to use. Personally I believe they are very similar in capabilities, haven't used git myself yet though. Also, if Michael goes Mercurial (and others like me) we could set up a gateway. > > Now, if Fonc is going to be run as a "closed shop project" - which I > > really, really hope not - but which I also fear - then, well, then I > > will reconsider and perhaps instead look at Michael to give me the > > satisfaction of a living open source project. > > Can you elaborate on this? What would make it more 'open source' (as > opposed to 'open write')? > > This project is currently in a very early stage. I know it is - but you need to take some care about "community tending". This means setting up a swiki, talking to the ml (about what is happening), trying to get people involved in sub parts (like Michael) etc etc. There are people quite interested - but note that when I asked around at OOPSLA this year it felt like... well, people feel it is stalling and it seems to me that you don't need to do everything on your own. Like a canvas UI? Ok, it's fun - I know :) - but perhaps someone else can pick up that ball? But you need to show us that you *want* that. Forgive me from thinking "loud" here - it is just to show you what I feel. I think this stuff is really cool and really promising but I am afraid it will stall because it all sits on your shoulders and you don't have 24*10 hours per day to spend. > It's still meandering (to use Michael's rather apt term) but there is a > long- > term vision; definitely at the crystallisation of style (and not the > agglutination of features) end of the spectrum. I think we all share that idea. Contribution != agglutination of features. > I'm afraid I am necessarily going to be selective about the contributed code > that is > included, and about its form, at least for the 'kernel' stuff. And you SHOULD. That is your role. :) > Things that appear useful may well be rejected because there's a plan > for something similar (but better, according to my strange metrics) a > year or two from now. Things may be rejected for no better reason > than they don't 'feel right'. Things that are relied on by members > of the community may well vanish overnight, as and when a planned > longer-term alternative becomes viable. I think most of us share the purity idea - as long as we know what is solid(ish) and what is not. > This might be what Michael was talking about when he said we're > working on something 'very focussed'? The path is completely fuzzy, > but in my mind much of the destination is in perfect focus. > > > Am I being antagonistic? Well, perhaps, but I really, really want Fonc > > to prosper as an open source project > > Me too! > > > and I really, really fear that it will *not* unless people try to > > make that happen. > > + > > > I really, really want Fonc > > to prosper as an open source project - and I really, really fear > > that it > > will *not* unless people try to make that happen. Just coding is not > > enough, sorry Ian. > > + > > > PS. I am an interested bystander and can't really contribute on the > > lower levels - but would love to make at least some contribution in > > the > > higher levels. > > = maybe you'd volunteer for Wikiministration, or anything else you > think could help? Sure, but I can't do much if you intend to host it yourself. I could also help with a Mercurial gateway and perhaps some blog articles if I get the time (ouch). Btw, if you could whip up some Socket support in pepsi - then that could open up some neat possibilities. > (And darn. I thought I could get away with just coding. :) I know. :) > Cheers, > Ian regards, Göran _______________________________________________ fonc mailing list [email protected] http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
