Mike wrote:

>         I'm probably a dinosaur, and my time has passed. :-(

Mike, cut yourself some slack. You are not a dinosaur. But you are 
clearly discouraged, not suprising given all you have to personally 
deal with.  But if there is any way you can avoid projecting onto the 
project your own personal discouragement, you would see things are 
not so bad. Not bad at all. You would also see how much your efforts 
here are appreciated. We DO appreciate appreciate your efforts 
maintaining the site, but I have to say your comments on development 
models make no sense at all. (But my appreciation for your leaf 
support is not diminished at all by my thinking your ideas on 
development models make no sense!)

> In other words, a monolithic development model defined by the
> Bering-uClibc team. 

They have defined no such thing. They have simply pointed out that 
Bering uClibc is currently dominant because it is active. They have 
done or said nothing to block variations, forks, other flavors, or 
further evolution. All they have done is provide strong leadership 
for pulling together what interests them.

Open source developers do what interests them for their own reasons. 
They don't fit in to an abstract development model that someone 
proposes.

I know what I'm talking about. I've been the leader of an open source 
project that wikipedia calls one of the three longest running still 
active open source projects (DOS fractal generator Fractint). The 
project started in about 1988 - so it's been going for 18 years, and 
amazingly enough, still has an active following. In all that time 
many people proposed that we do this, do that, adopt this 
architecture, that platform. Those are just empty words. In the end 
what actually happened was driven by who was willing to work, and 
what interested them, and how much skill they had to implement their 
vision. That cast of characters changed over the years just like it 
has here.

What I am saying is that the Leaf development model is evolutionary 
whether anyone says so or not or likes it or not. That's the way it 
is. Nobody has the power to make it anything else. Even an ideologue 
who wants to control things can't. Ask Dave Cinege!

For the record, I currently have an old PC running Charles 
Steinkuehler's port to leaf of the thttpd web server running on 
Oxygen on a DMZ. My router is a completely up to date Bering uClibc 
running on a soekris box - it has "evolved" over the years starting 
with Eigerstein on an old 486 (the PC I used for the fractint project 
years ago), and I've been migrating ever since. 

Sure I wish Charles, David D., and Jacques had decided to maintain 
their leaf branches, but like everyone else they do what their time, 
interests, and priorities permit. I'm sure glad the Bering uClibc 
team did what they did. I can't see the future, but whatever happens 
with leaf, it will be driven by those who have an interest they want 
to pursue, and who are willing and able.

Meanwhile, Mike, I hope you realize how important your role is. For 
the last few years my role in my own project has been to maintain a 
modest web site and run two mailing lists. That's at least half of 
what it takes to keep a project alive.

My unsolicited advice is enjoy what you have and what leaf is, don't 
regret what you aren't and leaf isn't, take pride in what you have 
accomplished, and continue to contribute as you can and as you wish. 
I suggest you not worry about development models, but continue to be 
as inviting and accomodating as possible to anyone who seems 
interested in helping.

Tim Wegner



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