Hi Rob,
 
good to hear that my feedback was recieved well.
 
So, you might be interested to know that I do read your blog and found the 
posts about context switches and the limits of 24 hour days. Maybe one day days 
can last 36 hours, who knows ;).
 
1. No problem. I hope they are back on your long-term radar. A problem though: 
I submitted some diffs, for example for the WixSerializer class. I actually 
wanted to make some updates to it (for example, proper support for the 
Content/InnerText property); but it's just very difficult to both keep my local 
CVS repository updated and keep my own changes locally. If my changes would 
have been 'somewhere' floating around in CVS, I could have send new diffs - for 
example, for version 1.2 or 1.3,... . It's just an annoyance, I know, but maybe 
something to keep in mind. As far as I am concerned, I submitted the diff for 
WiXSerializer, Autocomplete, an update to the XsdGen utility to support 
strongly typed collections and an update for the WiXUI library (the blue 
version ;)), which is likely to be outdated and wasn't very high quality I'm 
afraid.
 
As a sidenote, all of the updates I sumbitted are 'convenience' upates: things 
I want see in WiX, things I want to use. That's why it would be nice to have 
them *in* WiX rather than to be wading through the difficulties of getting the 
latest CVS version and applying my "fixes".
 
2, 3, 4, 5. Reworking the build system is a perfectly acceptable reason for 
development to slow down for a while. I'm not really familiar with the reason 
of the internal build server/source control system (eg: why not move to CVS for 
everything), and I don't need to be; but I understood it works as some kind of 
"gateway" (legal issues?). I would argue that maybe that gateway process could 
happen at commit time (eg: commit to CVS directly, but let the gatekeeper check 
the commits first), but I don't think I know enough about the process to 
comment on that.
 
6. I see. Now I might be the one souding like a broken record, but from the 
"outside" world, it's very hard to see where the things are lagging. In that 
sense, I mean that is not quite easy to find where help is needed. And, I don't 
know for the other people, but I right now only have time for WiX on a very 
'unstable' basis. That means that if you ask for long-term commitments 
(managing the build system, for example), that I am not your person. However, 
if there is a visible need for very well defined things (writing an 
autocomplete utility, converting a part of the build process to nAnt,...), I 
may hop in and help you out if I happen to have time. 
 
7. First off, the fork is just a hypothetical thing, a way to "proof" my point. 
(Yes, I study physics, hypothetical things and proofs are my world.) Basically 
the point is that although the assignment agreement might limit the legal mess, 
it cannot prevent it, and thus might be useless: there is a back door, one can 
walk around it,... I'm not a lawyer either, and I'm probably too European to be 
bothered too much by legal things ;). Sending in the assignement agreement by 
mail sucks. Let me repeat it: sending in the assignment agreement by mail 
sucks. 
 
8. I think WiX needs a way to actively track changes commited by other, work in 
process,... Yes, I stated that a long time ago already. Now it seems like CVS 
is the right tool for that, or at least can help a lot. I am willing to help on 
this issue, by writing this kind of e-mails or by actually trying to help to 
implement a solution. I, however, cannot devote myself to a continuous 
long-time commitment: I'm studying, (doing an Erasmus in Barcelona, of all 
places) and life is just too interesting to spend the whole day behind a 
computer. You should keep that in mind when I start whining and make you feel 
you are lagging.
 
Frederik.

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