mike said: > I really would like to hear something about the thoughts > of the current committers. what should be the future of > Velocity? How we can find a lead?
i'm not a committer to velocity proper, but i'll share my thoughts anyhow... i agree that velocity's long term future *may* be threatened if the current level of committer activity continues (or, if possible, declines). clearly, velocity development is not a priority to the current committers. as many have pointed out before, this is far more likely a sign of their contentment than abandonment. there are, however, two major problems with this. the first is the lack of a final 1.3.1 release. i don't really know myself what it takes to do a release, but i can't imagine it's anything that no committer can find time for somewhere in the last half-dozen-plus months. the second is that the committers' unwillingness/inability/extreme-slowness to apply contributors patches *strongly* discourages would-be contributors or potential committers from getting involved. in other words, it's pretty hard to merit committer status if the only open avenue for contribution is user-list support. thus, we have the difficulty of finding someone to pick up the slack when Geir et. al. haven't the time or desire to do things. this leads to loss of momentum, much grumbling in the ranks, and threatens to prove a certain obnoxious developer of a different template engine right in his endless derision and blather. i don't think anyone here really wants these things. so, here's my suggestion: since, afaics, the project is presently lacking someone who has "qualified" for committer status in the usual manner (much useful and accepted contributions) and the state of committer activity prevents someone from becoming such, why don't you (the committers) just pick someone that is willing/able to put in time and get them committer status. to anyone out there who is willing and confident enough in their worthiness to take on that responsibility, i think you may have to be a little bold/cheeky and explicitly (and in private email) request the committers to add you to their ranks. if they aren't interested, then you have a few options: 1. stick around and earn their trust with user list support, attaching/testing patches in bugzilla, and coherent doc/code contributions 2. leave and take the code with you. clone/improve the project at sourceforge or something. 3. leave velocity for another template engine. if they do accept you, then that's great! you should try to get a 1.3.1 final out the door, then get rolling on bugs, contribs, and whatnot. to those of you who are complaining about the lack of progress and/or arguing with those complaining... be careful that you're not just adding to the noise. 'tis far better to be (or at least try to be) part of the solution than part of the noise. Nathan Bubna [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
