Re: Looking for a new Emacs maintainer or team

From: Mike Mattie <codermattie@gmail.com>
To: emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Looking for a new Emacs maintainer or team
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:14:03 -0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20071231161403.1f786e57@reforged> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <200712312322.lBVNMsBg021808@oogie-boogie.ics.uci.edu>

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On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:22:53 -0800
Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu> wrote:

> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> 
>   >       > Once Emacs 22 is released, I would like to hand over
>   >       > Emacs maintenance to one person or a small team.  The new
>   >       > maintainer or maintainers would take responsibility for
>   >       > making sure new releases are made and that they are
>   >       > reliable, and for focusing attention on priority projects
>   >       > for improvement.
>   > 
>   >     Is this still the plan?  Last time this was discussed on the
>   > list many very capable volunteers were found.
>   > 
>   > A few people volunteered, and they could be useful members of a
>   > team, but (as I recall) they didn't include the most
>   > knowledgeable people.
> 
> OK, if this is the cause of the blockage, then let's work on what your
> criteria would be for choosing the maintainer(s).
> 
> 
> One proposal was to have a committee with 3 people:
> 
> - a "technical lead" which is responsible for the "quality" of the
>   major modifications to the software (i.e. C and Lisp code).
> 
> - a "release manager" which is responsible for the release, including
>   documentation, copyright stuff, packaging, etc  (basically anything
>   else)
> 
> - a "chairman" (the third person) who has the "final word" on any
>   disputes in the committee, based on an overall understanding of
>   Emacs "policies, history and visions" (whatever they are)...

I don't think that is a very good description of a chairman. A chairman
arbitrates procedure and typically does not vote. With your triad
you cannot even reach a quorum without the chairman.

Creating a political structure is non-trivial with many subtle pitfalls.
Programmers are not automatically skilled at this simply because they
work with complex systems.

Most of the politically structured projects I have read, or participated
in functioned more like an Asperger's convention than a decision making
process.

I think a benevolent dictator who can interact with people according
to social norms is key for a project, especially when the profession
is considered a haven for High Functioning Autism and a variety of
other handicaps.

A leader should be able to understand the people he leads, where their
strengths can be used, and how to avoid the certain pitfalls inherent
in every personality. If a committee helps then it's a good thing. 

The one certainty of this thread is that it will grow like cancer until
the constitutionalists form a separate mailing list.

Just stating the obvious from the back row.

> And there were volunteers for these positions: Kenichi Handa, Chong
> Yidong and Stefan Monnier.
> 
> If you'd like more people on the committee, why not just nominate them
> and maybe they will accept?
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-devel mailing list
> Emacs-devel@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-devel

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