On Apr 25, 2012, at 12:02 AM, Charles R Harris wrote: > > > On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 10:25 PM, 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). > > Well then, let's say you should have handed off, because you no longer had > the time to devote to it. You made the 1.2.1 release, and after that you > weren't really involved until recently. Now I'm sure that you didn't lose > interest, but you did lose the time, and I think it would have been better if > you had realized that fact up front.
I will grant you that. Hindsight is 20/20. And that certainly wasn't my intention and so I'm not sure I could have known enough to have that insight. Disappointment in that direction is another story for another time --- it has led directly to my current involvement and interest. -Travis
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