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correspendence about sawfish with Richard Stallman

Hello,

A month ago Richard Stallman sent me an email asking about sawfish.
Since he didn't object forwarding it here I am doing so - see for
yourself the attached emails.

Bottom line:

1. it looks to the outside world that we are doing good, even though
   the only thing we have done here was preventing sawfish death.

2. Consequently if anyone wants sawfish to really grow and to be a
   real leader if this project (not just maintainer like me) he is
   welcome to step up. Remember: sawfish could become a default for
   gnome again! And more popular to use with KDE also! It just needs
   more work.

So until no one appears we all will simply continue to keep sawfish
alive - with me as a maintainer. Perhaps someone here will submit
enough right patches necessary for sawfish to become gnome default.
It will take a longer time but is a reasonable path to follow also.

We will see what the time will bring.

best regards
-- 
Janek Kozicki                                                         |
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What would you think of this goal: to enhance Sawfish to catch up with
Metacity in eye candy, while retaining its superior programmability,
and then lobby to make Sawfish the normal GNOME window manager?

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
Richard Stallman said:     (by the date of Fri, 23 Nov 2007 22:12:14 -0500)

> What would you think of this goal: to enhance Sawfish to catch up with
> Metacity in eye candy, while retaining its superior programmability,
> and then lobby to make Sawfish the normal GNOME window manager?

Myself alone is not enough, John Harper had quit and Marius is not
active.

I'm not a sawfish coder, just a maintainer - I can only commit
patches and make releases - because John gave me sourceforge and SVN
access. But I cannot develop sawfish. I don't know lisp language and
I'm not that good at C.

I am just a self-declared sawfish community member who will make
releases. I have offered to do this just to avoid sawfish's death.

If we can find more willing developers for this task, then odds are
better. Can I forward your email to the mailing list? Perhaps some
other people will get inspired and find time for serious development.


Otherwise we shall let things roll in their own speed. I'll have a
bit more time on january, then I'll commit all patches waiting in the
queue and make release 1.3.2.

-- 
# Janek Kozicki

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
    > What would you think of this goal: to enhance Sawfish to catch up with
    > Metacity in eye candy, while retaining its superior programmability,
    > and then lobby to make Sawfish the normal GNOME window manager?

    Myself alone is not enough, John Harper had quit and Marius is not
    active.

The FSF could ask people to join the project, if the project is a good
idea and would have a good leader.  So my questions are:

* Does the idea make sense?

* Is there someone who could lead this?
Without a leader it is hard for more people to join.

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
Richard Stallman said:     (by the date of Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:27:13 -0500)

> The FSF could ask people to join the project, if the project is a good
> idea and would have a good leader.  So my questions are:
> 
> * Does the idea make sense?
 
> * Is there someone who could lead this?
> Without a leader it is hard for more people to join.

I cannot be a leader because I don't know sawfish code/internals.
If we could find anyone with better sawfish knowledge and enough
commitment/passion everyone would certainly appreciate this: the
project will move forward much faster.

The new website and latest release is a step in right direction,
I hope that this will make sawfish to get more attention, and
eventually someone will get involved enough to take over the lead of
the project.

Conclusion: the idea doesn't make sense *YET*. Sawfish is not dying
anymore, but we have to let it grow and find more people with
commitment. Then we can think about conquering GNOME desktop again.


I think I'll inform people on the mailing list about this idea.
Better they will know what's going on.

-- 
# Janek Kozicki

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