On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 12:25 AM, Travis Oliphant <tra...@continuum.io> wrote: > > On Apr 24, 2012, at 10:50 PM, Charles R Harris wrote: > > > > On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 9:28 PM, Fernando Perez <fperez....@gmail.com> > wrote: >> >> On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 8:02 PM, Charles R Harris >> <charlesr.har...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > Fernando, I'm not checking credentials, I'm curious. >> >> Well, at least I think that an inquisitive query about someone's >> background, phrased like that, can be very easily misread. I can only >> speak for myself, but I immediately had the impression that you were >> indeed trying to validate his background as a proxy for the >> discussion, and suggesting that others had the same curiosity... >> >> Had the question been something more like "Hey Nathaniel, what other >> projects do you think could inform our current view, maybe from stuff >> you've done in the past or lists you've lurked on?", I would have a >> very different reaction. But this sentence: >> >> """ >> I admit to a certain curiosity about your own involvement in FOSS >> projects, and I know I'm not alone in this. >> """ >> >> definitely reads to me with a rather dark and unpleasant angle. Upon >> rereading it again now, I still don't like the tone. I trust you when >> you indicate that your intent was different; perhaps it's a matter of >> phrasing, or the fact that English is not my native language and I may >> miss subtleties of native speakers. >> > > Perhaps it was a bit colored, but even so, I'd like to know some specifics > of his experience. Monotone was one of the projects that sprang up after > Linus started using Bitkeeper as an open alternative, but that is actually > fairly recent (2003 or so) and much of the discussion seems to have been > carried on over IRC, rather than a mailing list. I'm guessing that some > other projects could have taken place in the 90's, but things have changed > so much since then that it is hard to know what was going on in that decade. > There was certainly work on the C++ Template library, Linux, Python, and > various utilities. But it is hard to know. In any case, I'd guess that > Monotone was a fairly tight knit community, and about 2007 most of the > developers left. I'd guess it was mostly a case of git and mercurial > becoming dominant, and possibly they also lost interest in DVCS and moved on > to other things. > > Numpy itself has gone through several of those transitions, and looking > back, I think one of the problems was that when Travis left for Enthought he > didn't officially hand off maintenance. The whole transition was a bit > lucky, with David, Pauli, and myself unofficially continuing the work for > the 1.3 and 1.4 releases. At that point I was hoping David could more or > less take over, but he graduated, and Pauli would have been an excellent > choice, but he took up his graduate studies. Turnover is a problem with open > source, and no matter how much discussion there is, if people aren't doing > the work the whole thing sort of peters out. > > > Thanks for explaining yourself. The tone you used could earlier have been > mis-interpreted (though I would hope that people would look at your record > of contribution and give you the benefit of the doubt). Your last sentence > is very true. In this particular case, however, there is enough interest > that the whole thing will not peter out, but there is a strong chance that > there will be competing groups with divergent needs and interests vying for > how the project should develop. > > There are many people who rely on NumPy and are concerned about its > progress. NumFocus was created to fight for resources to further the whole > ecosystem and not just rely on volunteers that are available. I > fundamentally do not believe that model can scale. There are, however, > ways to keep things open source and allow people to work on NumPy as their > day-job. Several companies now exist that benefit from the NumPy code base > and will be interested in seeing it grow. > > It is a mis-characterization to imply that I "left the project" without a > "hand-off". I never handed off the project because I never left it. I > was very busy at Enthought. I will still be busy now. But, NumPy is very > important to me and has remained so. I have spent a great deal of mental > effort trying to figure out how to contribute to its growth. Yes, I > allowed other people to contribute significantly to the project and was very > receptive to their pull requests (even when I didn't think it was the most > urgent thing or something I actually disagreed with).
Sorry that I missed this part of numpy history, I always had the impression that numpy is run by a community led by Chuck and the young guys, David, Pauli, Stefan, Pierre; and Robert on the mailing list . (But I came late, and am just a balcony muppet.) Josef > > That should not be interpreted as having "left". NumPy grew because it > solved a useful problem and people were willing to tolerate its problems to > make a difference by contributing. None of us matter as much to NumPy as > the problems it helps people solve. To the degree it does that we are > "lucky" to be able to contribute to the project. I hope all NumPy > developers continue to be "lucky" enough to have people actually care about > the problems NumPy solves now and can solve in the future. > > -Travis > > > > > > > > > > Chuck > > _______________________________________________ > NumPy-Discussion mailing list > NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org > http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion > > > > _______________________________________________ > NumPy-Discussion mailing list > NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org > http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion > _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
