[ODE] From unstable to trunk...

[Gary R. Van Sickle]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ode-bounces at q12.org [mailto:ode-bounces at q12.org] On 
> Behalf Of Adam D. Moss
> Sent: Friday, July 01, 2005 4:20 AM
> To: ode
> Subject: Re: [ODE] From unstable to trunk...
> 
> Gary R. Van Sickle wrote:
> > I may come off sounding a bit trenchant here, but: how 
> about instead 
> > of
> 
> Barely.
> 
> > worrying about subversion vs. cvs, SourceForge vs. 
> WannaBeSourceForge vs.
> > Whoever, more mailing lists vs. wiki, etc etc etc, somebody (i.e. 
> > Adam) simply commit the existing known-good patches to mainline?  
> > Rationale: The latter is a task which can be completed in 
> finite time 
> > with finite effort, and results in progress on ODE.  The former(s) 
> > cannot, and result in ODE staying the same.
> 
> My being the bottleneck to patches getting in is a bad deal 
> for everyone (including me).  We're talking about how to make 
> development easier and more open for long-term ODE health.
> 

No, I know.  I've been involved in plenty of such discussions on various
projects, and been a silent witness on many more.  Such discussions, without
exception, follow the exact same pattern:

- Many long-winded discussions of the pros and cons of [insert version
control system/list-vs.-wiki/OSS host here].
- Much hand-wringing spread over the course of weeks and months.
- A few out-and-out battles erupt.
- At the end of the day, there's no change to anything, because the
"anything" under discussion wasn't the real problem to start with.
- Meanwhile, the package continues to languish.

> Meanwhile, if you didn't notice, I've already asked if people 
> can isolate known-good patches in UNSTABLE, or, heck, just 
> give an iota of feedback about the patches floating on the 
> mailing list.
> 

Yes, I of course did notice, and I thank you for taking the task of
coordinating this effort.  Adam, I'm not attacking anybody here; I'm simply
trying to head off an unproductive tangent.  Cvs works fine for projects
with many orders of magnitude more code, more contributors, and larger scope
than ODE.  Etc etc.  None of that stuff is the issue.  As somebody else said
in this thread, perhaps more succinctly, the issue was, is, and will remain
the shortage of qualified people willing and able to take the patches which
are floating around, evaluate them for suitability, and merge them in to the
trunk (i.e. maintainers).  Changing version control systems, setting up
wikis, etc etc, will do nothing to change that.  That's all I was trying to
say.

Now that said, I do think the idea someone floated about having an
ode-patches list could make your (and any other potential maintainers) life
easier - assuming people will use it, and use it properly (i.e. not send
questions there).  I think the chances of those assumptions being proved
correct are pretty low, and I think more time would be spent telling folks,
"great patch, but don't send patches to ode@, send them to ode-patches@,"
than would be spent simply saving the attachments as they come in.  But
that's your call, and now I'm going off on a tangent ;-).

> --adam
> -- 
> Adam D. Moss   -   adam at gimp.org
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-- 
Gary R. Van Sickle