On Tue, Apr 05, 2016 at 02:43:15PM +0100, Richard Russon wrote:
> The usual pattern is:
>     developer writes some code
>     it doesn't meet the mutt-dev standards (for whatever reason)
>     developer gives up
>     time passes
>     variants of the patch turn up (because people like the feature)
>     distros start bundling different versions the patch
> 
> Mutt should be doing everything it can to bring developers together.
> NeoMutt's lower bar for entry should help.

Yes, with a caveat.  I myself have started several "Mutt is
stagnating" threads over the years, so I'm sympathetic to this.  But
it's also still important that Mutt not lose sight of its raison
d'etre: to be the mail client that sucks less.  [Sorry Vincent, I
can't type the French accents. ;-)] That means, in part, that when new
code is written, it be evaluated with an eye toward quality, and that
code that isn't up to par be rejected.  Mutt is also already extremely
featureful; part of the job of the maintainer(s) is to evaluate how
any given proposed feature fits in with the current code base, whether
any additional complexity is worth what the feature provides, and
whether new features or changes in functionality (or their
implementations) compromise the integrity or security of Mutt.  

Whatever criticisms of the Mutt dev process you might have, it's hard
to argue that any of the previous maintainers failed to take quality
into consideration; and this focus does, necessarily I think, lead to 
a more conservative development process.  Kevin has newly taken over
that role, and has been doing a fine job, but let's also try to help
him acheive those goals by not asking to have every kitchen sink patch
committed by end-of-business tomrrow. =8^)  [I know you're not--I'm
being fecetious.]  While we may strive to move forward, at the same
time we all need to be dilligent to make sure Mutt stays the powerful,
reliable, managable (and maintainable) mail client it has always been.

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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