>>>>> "BM" == Brady Montz <bradym_at_cs.arizona.edu> writes:
BM> About all this rat discussion. I think people are being a bit harsh
BM> about Chuck.
People get busy, and the allure of being semi-famous and hacking on cool
software only lasts for so long before it gets to be work like everything
else.
I've been involved with a project for some time how which parallels closely
the development of FVWM. It's the Majordomo mailing list manager (which,
not coincidentally, is what runs this list). It has a long history and is
popular, it's free, it's been hacked on for a long while now and it has a
current maintainer who is busy and goes for months at a time without
contributing or answers users' questions. People were still contributing,
but the code was getting very messy and it badly needed a rewrite.
I thought to complain about it, but I instead chose to do something about
it and begin a complete rewrite, from the ground up, with no code
surviving. That was in early December. I'm just now getting close to
releasing an alpha version that has most of the necessary functionality,
and am still several months from a full release.
The point is not that you shouldn't complain; complainers have a place
along side critics and contributors. The real point is that if someone has
the desire, the balls, or the plain stupidity it requires to step in and
say "I'm going to do what needs to be done" then they should do it, and
they should do it soon. I really doubt Chuck or anyone here would stand in
their way. Some might snicker and some might gape in disbelief, but guess
what: that's what it's going to take. Someone has to champion the cause,
even if there is a move to a distributed development model. I'll even host
the depot if someone wants to get me up to speed on CVS (or Perforce, which
is nicer and free for Linux). But I can't do the patch integration.
Either that, or everyone needs to make the decision to give up and roll
over everything that FVWM is into some other window manager.
- J<
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Received on Mon Jul 07 1997 - 17:34:13 BST