Ingo -- On Wed, Sep 10, 2014, Ingo Schwarze wrote: > > One of the issues he raised with me off-list is an apparent lack > > of organization. It's true. > > I disagree. Lack of reviewable patches is not lack of organization. > If you have reviewable patches and people go for each other's throat > instead of testing the patches and providing OKs or specific > suggestions for improvement, that might be called lack of > organization. But that's not at all what we have.
Key word: "apparent". I meant to convey that the situation might be perceived as lacking organization, not that it does. A suit, for example, would see it that way. He'd be wrong, of course. > > Vaibhaw suggested that a list of major work that is ongoing in > > groff would be helpful, too, with some sort of ETA. > > I'm not sure such a list is even possible (esp. the ETAs), > > but it's a reasonable thing for any maintainer to want, > > That's not what a maintainer of a free software project would ask > of his fellow developers. That's not even what a team leader would > ask of his workforce in a sweatshop. It's what a Senior Vice > President of Technology would ask of his Managing Directors in a > corporation. Not sure such a thing is that helpful with a handful > of part-time free software nerds. ;-) > > In my experience, ETAs fail more often than not, even in a commercial > setting where everybody works full time, where that pesky thing > called real life doesn't intervene except when people fall ill, and > where even that is smoothened out by the law of large numbers. Total agreement, hence the parenthetical comment about ETAs. :) I presented the matter as it was presented to me; it doesn't reflect my personal opinion. I do like the idea of having a list of who's doing what, etc, though. It's not essential--anybody can enquire about anything on the list and somebody always pops up with an answer--but it would be nice to have, if only to form a cognitive map of the groff terrain, so to speak. Plus, one does sometimes want to contact the expert in a particular area off list, or the person actively working on a specific part of groff. In the latter case, one could, I suppose, use git tools to extrapolate who's working on what, but a simple list is more convenient. Anyway, if others agree, they'll supply what's needed, as you did. Otherwise, it's an idea that didn't take. I don't think there's much need for discussion. It's a trivial matter. -- Peter Schaffter http://www.schaffter.ca
