Re: Some questions

[Pavel Roskin <proski gnu org>]

On Sun, 2005-05-22 at 23:35 +0200, Leonard den Ottolander wrote:
> Hello Pavel,
>
> On Sun, 2005-05-22 at 02:44, Pavel Roskin wrote:
> > Releasing a version that doesn't compile with the latest compiler
> > against the latest libraries could affect credibility of the project.
>
> Not doing a release for years even though there has been significant
> progress is what affects the credibility of the project.

I agree.

> Already in december 2004 we had sort of finished the TODO for 4.6.1. It
> is your over exaggerated "perfectionism" and lack of trust in your
> developers that is hampering the project. If you don't have time to
> check everything yourself you should try to rely more on people that are
> actually doing the work. This doesn't mean your opinion is not or should
> not be valued, but most of the issues you are concerned about (gcc-4.0
> and slang-2) didn't even exist in december 2004 when development on the
> 4.6.1 branch was sort of frozen.

I agree except the fact that nobody has ever told me that all e-mail was
read and acted upon in some way.

> I believe the developers are quite willing to address all the issues you
> bring up before the release of 4.6.2 (or 4.7.0 for that matter). But the
> continued delay of a rather good (maybe not perfect) release of 4.6.1 is
> what is chasing away developers. And it is bringing users in harms way
> for putting up a barrier to do an upgrade to a release that addresses
> some significant security issues. Hiding behind the responsibilities of
> downstream distributors would be a very lame excuse.

I'm not sure I understand you here.  I'm not against a release.  I'm
just saying that I cannot do it properly at this time.  If someone else
can take the responsibility for the project and make a release, I'm fine
with it (provided that the maintenance is transferred openly, and all
interested parties have their say).

> You should stop demotivating all the people that are actually working on
> this project by finally doing a release of 4.6.1 (sure, we should fix
> some warnings before that, but this is a point point release, it doesn't
> have to be perfect, just better than the previous). If you would put
> more trust in your developers and the input of the people frequenting
> mc-devel it shouldn't take too much of your time to maintain this
> project and still maintain a rather high quality standard.

I see what you mean.  You are saying that I could concentrate on
maintenance rather that review and discuss every patch about Python
keywords or something like that.  If it's OK for everyone, I can do it.

If you want me to make a release from the 4.6.1 branch, I can do it
within a few days.  I'll need to move some stuff from the HEAD branch
though just to make it easier for everyone.  In particulate, the Alt-O
behavior should be consistent.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin