Re: metacity-list gnome org

[Elijah Newren <newren gmail com>]

On 9/11/05, BJörn Lindqvist <bjourne gmail com> wrote:
> It doesn't exist. I think a metacity-list would be really really
> useful. Pretty please? :)

As Havoc, said, I think the big question is finding out what problems
this would address or what new advantages it would bring.  I believe
there may be things that we should address, but I'm not sure yet if a
mailing list is what we need (a wiki page, an extra file in CVS with a
little more info, or other solutions may work).  If it is though, I'd
like to avoid the "annoying discussions" that could easily happen[1].

Your question did make me think about potential problems, though. 
Besides sucking at reviewing patches[2], I did think of one other
potential problem (please let me know if there are others).  We're not
doing very well about communicating what is being worked on and
why[3], which makes it a little harder for potential contributors
trying to find their way around.  Yet it looks like we may
(hopefully!) be gaining more and more contributors[4].  Some way of
sharing this information better may help this group.

Thanks for your work on Metacity, btw.

Cheers,
Elijah

[1] Perhaps this could be done by calling it metacity-devel-list and
limiting it to stuff that didn't fit into bugzilla (e.g. roadmap,
who's working on what, what the development branches are for,
questions about how certain parts of the code work by those who are
trying to certain bugs, etc.)

[2] Such as with bug 314977 and bug 170475 from you--both of which
looked fine at quick glance, btw, though I didn't have time to test or
look closer yet.

[3] For example, the spiffifity branch was created and was being
worked on without me even knowing until after the fact (though Havoc
did tell me soon after in email).  Similar thing happened with the
constraints_experiments branch that was created recently, though this
time I was the one doing the creating.  There's also been emails I
sent Havoc asking for details about how certain parts of the code
worked or bouncing preliminary ideas off him that could have
potentially helped others.

[4] Those who have contributed at least some and have said or somehow
hinted to me that they plan to work more on Metacity include you, Ray
Strode, Brent Smith, Billy Biggs, Aidan Delaney, Jaap Haitsma, Dave
Ahlswede, Soeren, Rob, Havoc (does the maintainer count as a
contributor?), me, and probably others I missed. Granted, we still
have periods with lower amounts of development and maintenance since
none of us are super active, and some on that list may not still be
interested, but it does seem like it's growing and getting better
overall.