Re: Some questions

[Roland Illig <roland illig gmx de>]

Frank Schoolmeesters wrote:
> On the homepage of MC i see:
>   Last stable version: 4.6.0 (released February 5, 2003)
>   Test version: 4.6.1-pre1 (released December 24, 2003)

> And i can see there is lots of activity on the MC mailing lists
> so, why there are no new MC releases yet?  A new release would be
> great!

That's what most of the mc developers want, too. But there's one
problem: The project's maintainers. They seem to be unable to publish a
release and to keep the developers motivated.

The current maintainers are Pavel Roskin and Miguel de Izaca.

> Looking for a new version, I've seen several comments about the MC
> devel team shutting down, disbanding, etc. I did even read on some
> websites that the MC development was completely stalled, that there
> would be no new versions, for the moment i'm just confused! what is
> actually the status of the MC project? Is this really happening?
> What's the real story?

The real story is that the whole code of the Midnight Commander is
pretty old and has shown its age. It is missing a clear and simple
structure on which new features can be integrated easily.

Some of the developers are still active, despite the lack of proper
project management. Some other people that are listed as developers I
have never heard of and probably never will.

Development on the Midnight Commander continues, but slowly.

> And who is the current maintainer of MC or which group maintains MC? 
> Nothing is really listed on the website, so I don't know who to ask 
> directly.

That's a problem of the project maintainers -- to organize information
and to keep it tight together. Or to delegate the task.

Roland
(one of the developers awaiting a release)