From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Eric S. Raymond" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: More metaproblem Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2014 13:19:14 -0500 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Message-ID: <20141205181914.GF3120@thyrsus.com> References: <20141203192721.GE12748@thyrsus.com> <547F6774.50700@cs.ucla.edu> <838uio5vjw.fsf@gnu.org> <20141203211447.GB15111@thyrsus.com> <871toge5zw.fsf@floss.red-bean.com> <83388v6hsq.fsf@gnu.org> <87egsftgd5.fsf@ktab.red-bean.com> <83egsf3yci.fsf@gnu.org> <87iohq6nvn.fsf@ktab.red-bean.com> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1417803629 13809 80.91.229.3 (5 Dec 2014 18:20:29 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2014 18:20:29 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Eli Zaretskii , eggert@cs.ucla.edu, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Karl Fogel Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Dec 05 19:20:21 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XwxUH-0005T3-8Q for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 19:20:17 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51881 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XwxUG-0008H0-Qo for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 13:20:16 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:52829) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XwxTS-0007RS-88 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 13:19:31 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XwxTN-00025u-E8 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 13:19:26 -0500 Original-Received: from static-71-162-243-5.phlapa.fios.verizon.net ([71.162.243.5]:56818 helo=snark.thyrsus.com) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XwxTH-00024S-GF; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 13:19:15 -0500 Original-Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id ECF77382C3E; Fri, 5 Dec 2014 13:19:14 -0500 (EST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87iohq6nvn.fsf@ktab.red-bean.com> X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 71.162.243.5 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:178974 Archived-At: Karl Fogel : > If we could work out the technical details to have a "www/" directory at > the top level of the Emacs source tree, and have that be where both the > home page http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ *and* soon-to-be-written > new developer-oriented pages are maintained, would you be in favor of > that? Something at least roughly equivalent to this *needs to happen*. > Elisp code for people to use as examples. Few projects should be as > easy to contribute to as Emacs should be. That is true. The main barrier is not the codebase; it is guidance and an uptake process that can best be described as shambolic. > My request is simple and specific: > > I'm asking the biggest contributors to Emacs (you, among others) to > > - Not oppose a revamp of the contributor documentation along the lines > I described; > > - Not oppose using a modern bug tracker -- one that supports email > manipulation but *also* supports manipulation via a web browser. > (Redmine, for example.) > > Those two changes alone would lower the barrier to entry significantly. Yes, they would. We need to behave like a normal project with a normal interest in attracting new developers, doing that in a normal way. Practice in these areas has long passed Emacs by. > Senior developer resistance to those changes effectively means they can > never take place. Absence of such resistance doesn't guarantee that > they will take place, but is certainly a necessary precondition. > > Right now, any volunteer energy toward such changes is pre-quashed: > anyone who might think of doing them, but who reads this list, would > quickly come to the conclusion that it would be a huge fight, a > months-long abuse fest, and give up in advance. Alas, I certainly could not falsify that charge by what I went through moving us to git. The Emacs dev list has a culture and traditions which, though not actually designed to suppress new contributors, might as well have been. > So I'd love to see that barrier go away, just to see what would happen. My meta-plan is to identify barriers to new developers, one by one, and dynamite them. Not being on git was a *biiiig* one. The disorganized and undiscoverable state of Emacs's internal documentation is another, which is one reason one of my next minor to-dos is cleaning out the /etc attic. -- Eric S. Raymond