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

[Paul Sokolovsky <pmiscml gmail com>]

Hello,

On Sat, 30 May 2015 13:56:54 +0200
Oswald Buddenhagen <oswald buddenhagen gmx de> wrote:

> On Sat, May 30, 2015 at 02:08:37PM +0300, Paul Sokolovsky wrote:
> > On Sat, 30 May 2015 11:53:58 +0200 Oswald Buddenhagen
> > <oswald buddenhagen gmx de> wrote:
> > > On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:46:08AM +0300, Paul Sokolovsky wrote:
> > > > You again trying to over-complicate. Start from a clean page on
> > > > github, while invite community to migrate issues from trac to
> > > > github. Most content on trac from people who gave up on mc long
> > > > ago. It makes sense to process what active people are
> > > > interested in and leave old stuff where it is.
> > > nonsense. the old infrastructure is going to disappear at some
> > > point, and everything on it will be lost. it is entirely
> > > irrelevant that many of the people lost interest - most of the
> > > issues are still valid, and a lot of time went into discussing
> > > solutions. it would be plain stupid to throw this away, never
> > > mind the disregard for other people's work.
> >
> > I didn't propose to throw it away. I proposed to leave it where it
> > is for now and work on github issues/patches (which are also
> > issues/patches, surprise), while ask help from wider community to
> > migrate issues to github. If/when new maintainers ran out of github
> > issues, they certainly will look into trac themselves, either at
> > individual issues, or en-masse migration. The talk is about smooth
> > start for new maintainers without extraordinary efforts.


> i think you are being a tad overly optimistic here.

And you, as few other folks, try to "frighten away" people with how hard
it is. What's the point, what's the plan with such behavior? Hope that
someone else will come and tell, "yeah, I have 20hrs/week, and I
already brought bucket and a mop to start cleaning your Augean
stables"? Previous cases show that it takes 1+ year for such event to
happen, which is not smooth transition at all.

> just for some perspective: a year ago or so i went through the effort
> of un-botching the previous import. more than half a decade after the
> fact. at this rate, there is no reason whatsoever to think that the
> infra will still be even there when somebody finally feels like doing
> a migration (midnight-commander.org is owned privately by slavaz).

I know, hope Slava/Yury/whoever can maintain it, say, till the end of
this year. Again, not doing anything at all and waiting for a knight to
save it won't help either.

> also, the longer you wait, the more work gets duplicated, and the
> harder it will be to merge the data sets in a useful way.

Let's get to a productive tone: your help with the migration will be
much welcome and appreciated.

> that's why i would expect some serious commitment to a migration from
> somebody who wants to take over with the blessing of the previous
> maintainers.

Sorry, but you cannot expect anything like that. Everything will be
done on best effort basis, just the same as was done before, and as
always the case with OpenSource projects. Acceptance is the first step.
If that is achieved, we can discuss technical and
organizational/personal commitments aspects.

[]
> > So, you started an argument in githib ticket, then came here just to
> > criticize and repeat "'tis not possible"?
> there is no contradiction whatsoever in that. i can review and discuss
> despite full awareness that i won't be able to put a final stamp of
> approval under it.

No problem, but there should be finite time put into that, we can't go
in circles forever or even too long.

> > Come on, time for productive actions - are *you* ready to be a
> > maintainer?
> no. exactly because i lack the time (or personal motivation) to make
> the commitment. it's not like i haven't been tempted during a decade
> of lurking.

Indeed, we talk here not about the "best" solution, but of not allowing
the "worst", when project went unmaintained for a prolonged time, and
at the same time improving some aspects wrt previous practices.


-- 
Best regards,
 Paul                          mailto:pmiscml gmail com