On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 8:25 PM, Nick Alexander <ncalexan...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> In my personal opinion, a decent stabilisation release could be achieved >>>> by everyone submitting just bug fixes. >>> >>> Yep. The problem is that this involves telling everyone what to do. >> >> Not really. You tell people what a release will consist of. It is to them >> whether or not they want to submit bugs or enhancements for review. They >> will just be aware that the enhancements will have to wait for a release. >> >> There should be very little for them to rebase their enhancements either, >> as the changes made to Sage will not be as large as normal. > > Okay, then you tell people that their hard work will not be packaged in the > next iteration. Maybe that's life, but it will certainly discourage me from > contributing when I'm told in advance that my changes will not be > incorporated in the usual manner. > > Nick
+1 Nick's understanding of contributors as explained above is part of what has helped the Sage project grow to have so many contributors. Since the beginning of the project, we've tried to listen and think about what would increase the chances that serious potential contributors would actually contribute. Obviously, what encourages one developer can discourage another, so tradeoffs have to be made. Nick's comments above also succinctly illustrate the value of "release early; release often" to potential contributors. This discussion also gives a sense of how the Sage project has to be run differently than a commercial software company. The developers are all volunteers, and this changes the dynamic of the project dramatically from what it would be if Sage were a commercial development effort with all developers fulltime employees. -- William -- William -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
