[ On Thursday, February 24, 2000 at 14:33:06 (-0800), Bruce Atherton wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Blinded by philosophy
>
> There are a great many of us who use CVS daily, and find that
> although the design goals are substantially correct, a revisiting of
> them would greatly enhance the usability. This is similar to the
> situation in the building. The Drummers experience no ill effects
> from the openness of the building. The goals must reflect a balanace
> between the needs of all the users.
All you've proven is that you should be using another tool! :-)
> What? You are an owner and I am merely a renter? Why is that?
> Who has drawn that distinction?
You are not using CVS for the purpose it was designed to be used, a
purpose that a large number of important users (especially those who
still maintain CVS) still find relevant and indeed that CVS still
fulfils as it was designed to do.
> We all equally own the code in an GPL licensed project, although
> those who contribute code are more equal than others. Since CVS
> has such ridiculous restrictions on who can check in code, the
> "owners" have become an elite group that is hidebound,
> unresponsive to the needs of the majority of users. That is one of
> the reasons why development of CVS is so broken. I've given up on
> helping develop CVS myself, and read this list only occasionally now.
What kind of nonsense is that?
If you don't like the current CVS then either "fork" the development and
release a new version (hopefully under a new name :-) that you do like;
*or* go away and find some other tool that fulfils your requirements
more completely.
What do you know about the "majority" of users? If the true majority of
CVS users want locking or some other antithetical feature then someone
please stand up and lead them over to a new version of a version control
system that gives them this feature. Then the remaining "majority" of
CVS users will be those who are using CVS for what it was designed to be
used for and will be 100% completely satisfied by the features it
already offers and will be 100% completely opposed to the addition of
features that do not fit with the design goals of the tool.
GPL licensed projects, or any freeware for that matter, are *NOT* market
driven. They fill niches. They do not try to gain market share in some
form of mutated capitalism. That would not only be a stupid thing to
do, but it would also be counter-productive for everyone (look at how
stupid and counter-productive some commercial software has become once
it has locked in a "majority" of the users!). If you're not in the
niche filled by a given project but you're trying to use the product of
that project anyway then you're strictly on your own. CVS is not
"big-box" software!
--
Greg A. Woods
+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Secrets of the Weird <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
