Re: GDP maintainer

[John Fleck <jfleck inkstain net>]

Eric -
This is an excellent letter. Once other GDP people have had their say and
offered their input, I think we should send it to gnome-love and
gnome-hackers.

I also want to point out something Eric and I discussed which sort of comes
through here, but I want to make explicit: We have gotten terrific help from
Jonathan, Mikael and Daniel Veillard (and lately Sander has jumped in) on a
lot of the hacking work that has been needed. I think that sort of help is
still going to be needed - Jonathan, for example, as a point person in dealing
with libgnome(ui) issues, DV as our work relates to libxml/libxslt and Mikael
in terms of Yelp. We we need here is a hacker on our side of each of those
divides to do the hacking work necessary to convert our ideas about how the
docs system should work into usable code.

John

On Sun, Apr 14, 2002 at 02:03:30PM -0500, Eric Baudais wrote:
> John and I have been talking about the need to integrate and maintain the 
> GDP's various tidbits of code scattered around.  There is the yelp help 
> browser, docbook converter, manpage converter, infopage converter, 
> Scrollkeeper, and other things we would like to see implemented in the future 
> (i.e. context sensitive help, graphical tutorials).  Currently this 
> responsibility rests on John who "can barely hack his way out of a paper bag." 
> 
> What we need is a person who can maintain our code if the current author 
> decides to abandon the code and do something else.  Below is an email I have 
> made to ask the GNOME community for a hacker who can integrate the 
> contributions of hackers willing to write code with the rest of the GNOME 
> desktop and to maintain our current code if the authors decide to stop 
> maintaining it.  I believe this is necessary and prudent.
> 
> Email:
> 
> The GDP's adventure in to GNOME 2 has been a bumpy ride.  Jonathan Blandford's 
> proposal for the help API wasn't implemented until long into the Betas.  The 
> on the fly docbook converter had a guy who left.  I tried to write them and 
> failed.  Finally Sander stepped up and it looks like it will finally get done. 
> There are multiple bugs for the manpage and infopage converters.  Yet it 
> hasn't been all bad.  Scrollkeeper is moving along at its slow pace and Yelp 
> become a reality in only 4 months due to Mikael's hard work.
> 
> Why has this been a pothole plagued road for the GDP?  We lost some good 
> hacker contributions to Scrollkeeper and the help converters.  There wasn't a 
> hacker around to notice that the help API wasn't implemented.  People from the 
> GDP have stepped up to take a swing at doing this work.  I tried to write the 
> on the fly docbook converter.  John Fleck is currently maintaining the help 
> converters.  Dan Mueth is maintaining Scrollkeeper.  This obviously hasn't 
> turned out to be the best situation.
> 
> We are asking the GNOME community for someone to help us maintain our code 
> and to help integrate the scattered code into the GNOME desktop.  The 
> contributions of Mikael, Jonathan, Daniel Veillard, and Sander help us in 
> narrow specific areas.  These contributions are greatly beneficial, but we 
> need someone to maintain the whole system so it can run smoothly and integrate 
> their contributions.  This person should have a moderate knowledge of the 
> GNOME desktop and a willingness to work with hackers and non-hackers alike.  
> This person should also be excited about the direction the GDP is headed 
> toward a complete XML based help system.
> 
> Looking at the GNOME Advisory Board's meeting notes "ease of use" and 
> "usability" seem to be at the top of GNOME's objectives.  We hope by having a 
> hacker who can integrate sparodic contributions and maintain the code these 
> goals can met and the documenters can work on documentation instead of 
> maintaining code.
> 
> Eric Baudais
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