Re: "mc is over!?" - post by Ilia Maslakov on Russian-speaking IT site

[Paul Sokolovsky <pmiscml gmail com>]

Hello,

On Thu, 28 May 2015 12:11:04 +0200
Egmont Koblinger <egmont gmail com> wrote:

> Hi guys,
[]

> Instead, I believe it should be a core with 3-5 people who have
> similar working style and similar vision of the project, and each
> contribute just a few hours per week.  

Yes. And generally, it would be nice if these people would be driven
not by personal ambitions of something to do regarding mc, but by desire
to serve community. And their core responsibilities would be to process
submissions, and guide contributors into producing patches suitable for
merging.

[]

> I'd be happy to
> see Mooffie on the team right away, his work (along with his style
> and the contents of the homepage) totally convinced me.

There's concern (which Mooffie himself raises) of de-anonymization.
Indeed, for a tool which can be run as root, it would be nice to know
who's really that guy who maintains it.

> I'm sorry to say this, but I myself cannot guarantee anything and
> cannot make any commitments.  I'm spending a long vacation right now
> where I was planning to do some coding on my primary hobby project
> (gnome-terminal), and maybe address one or two issues on my secondary
> hobby project (mc); all subject to my mood.  After this vacation I'll
> start a new job which will require 100% of me.  So I'd rather stay an
> occasional contributor as I am now, and not devote myself to anything
> with mc.

Thanks for finding time to respond during your vacation.

But there's a bit of contradiction: you said that you would have Moofie
on the team, but then say you can't make *any* commitments (we're
already on the same line that there can't be any "extraordinary"
commitments like 20hrs/week or something).

So, let me just ask: what do you think should be done now (refarding
this whole maintainership situation), and in what timeframe? It would
be very nice if there was fresh start right from the start, otherwise
it's just the same situation as before: the procrastination, and most
people don't know what and how it will be.

> G-t is my personal hobby project in the sense that I do hunt down and
> address bugs that cause problems to other people but I myself don't
> particularly care about.  Mc never reached this level for me, I never
> took time to look at bugs and patches that I myself wasn't personally
> interested in.  Don't ask me why it turned out this way, I don't know
> - maybe it was because on g-t I got quick feedback of my work,
> whereas on mc I often had to wait for so long that I almost lost
> interest, and often missed the free time I had when I could have
> worked on these issues.

Yes, feedback people get on first submission and overall impression is
very important. That's why I think that timely responses and formal
criteria for processing patches (instead of "I don't like") are very
important. And that's IMHO what maintainers should work on, anything
else can be done by community as guides by maintainers.

> As for the current segfault issue, I think the broken change should be
> reverted for now and a .15 released until we come up with a proper
> solution. 

I won't say "this is obvious", I just say +1.

> Giant thanks to you guys who maintained this project for years, I'm
> sad to see you go, and wish you all the best!

That's certainly true, and there're a lot to learn from them (while
some things to change too). Again, would be nice to have timely and
smooth transition, while they still in loop and oversee/help with
various issues.

> e.



-- 
Best regards,
 Paul                          mailto:pmiscml gmail com