On Wednesday, December 19, 2001, at 12:38 AM, Will Hartung wrote:

> Basically, I'm stuck. I'm keeping MyVeloctity-1.2 as is, becuase we have
> users using it and *shock* documentation on how to use it. There's code
> being made now against this new model, but that doesn't mean that all is
> lost for the rest of you. Run, while you still can!

you're not stuck at all - no really, you aren't! the great thing about 
open source is that you are very, very welcome to have you're own version 
of velocity. develop what you have, throw it away, post it up, whatever 
you want :)

it's sometimes hard for developers to understand that rejection isn't 
usually a statement about the quality of their code or their design ideas.
  social pressures  combined with patch review and fixing�by committers 
mean that weak patches are rare and are as likely as any to be accepted. 
the most common reason for rejection is that a patch would compromise a 
design line-in-the-sand understood by the committers but which appears odd 
to outsiders.

here at jakarta our rules mean that once there is a blocking veto amongst 
velocity committers, a patch cannot be accepted. your patch is on the 
wrong side of the template/scripting line. even if the patch was committed 
it would vetoed and have to be backed out. i'm not trying to make a 
judgement whether this template/scripting line is right or wrong, it's 
just that this is where the line has been drawn by the velocity committers.

this isn't - of course - the end of the story. under the 'rules for 
revolutionaries', if there was sufficient momentum from committers who 
disagreed strongly about design, then the code base might be forked. this 
is very unlikely in this case since geir's judgement is universally 
respected - just look at the recent 'geir is a legend' thread on the user 
list. the last resort would be for disenchanted committers to leave and 
form their own project reflecting their values.

> Sorry to cause such a fuss. I'll shut up now.

no - why not hang around? why not stick with your own version of velocity 
that does what you want it to do? the great thing about open source is 
that you have the code and so there's much less pressure to upgrade to 
newer versions. velocity is a project that is (fairly) mature and widely 
used. there might be bugs still hiding but there's a good chance that they'
ll be in relatively obscure code that you'll don't use. if you do need a 
patch then so long as you're subscribed to the development list, you'll be 
able to get the patches you need from the commit mails - and only apply 
those you need.

maybe one day a good way will be found within velocity to do what you want,
  or maybe one day we'll see a VelocityScript (say) - at jakarta or 
somewhere else - based on the velocity core but with scripting additions. 
maybe one day the feeling amongst the velocity committers will be 
different or maybe you'll come round to the their position after all (most 
people find that they can live with just context tools).  maybe these 
things would be good - or maybe they would be bad. i don't know :)

- robert


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