Re: My resignation from Emacs development

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2024 13:06:40 +0000
> Cc: Madhu <enometh@meer.net>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> From: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>
> 
> > The reason this didn't happen with Stefan Monnier is that at least I
> > don't see any particular problem of this kind in what Stefan does (and
> > did during the decades of his very active involvement in the project).
> 
> I have taken the trouble to outline and analyse in detail several places
> where Stefan's contributions have given rise to trouble, at least for me
> personally, and certainly for some other contributors.  Up till now, none
> of you, Stefan K, or Andrea have replied with the same level of detail,
> or even acknowledged what I wrote.  I'm disappointed at this.

Like I said: good-faith mistakes do happen, but they happen rarely.
The cases you mentioned don't change and don't contradict that, even
if one agrees 100% with your assessment of what happened in those
cases.

> 
> > The Emacs model of development is that we completely trust leading
> > contributors to install changes without discussing them.  This trust
> > works well and keeps our development moving forward very fast,
> > although sometimes there are good-faith mistakes, which then require
> > discussions a-posteriori, and sometimes (rarely) end up with changes
> > being reverted or radically modified.
> 
> The model of development for all contributors bar Stefan M has involved
> open discussion on emacs-devel before big changes.  No other leading
> contributor has violated this convention that I'm aware of.  For example,
> when you implemented the display-line-numbers facility, you did so
> entirely in public.

Bad example.  The line-number display was a feature I implemented
because others requested it; I myself don't use it and consider it
un-Emacsy, as I told back then.  So I needed the feedback very much
because I couldn't myself make decisions about a feature I don't and
won't use.

If you want a better example, compare with development of
bidirectional editing support.  There, I posted a very small number of
messages describing my design decisions, but never asked for their
approval -- because in that area I know more than most anyone here.

For a smaller and more recent example, consider the implementation of
TTY menus.  Or even the recent support for thumbnails on MS-Windows.

> > All of the leading contributors, including yours truly, have sometimes,
> > rarely, made such mistakes.  Stefan's record is not different in this
> > regard from any other's.
> 
> Eli, how can you say this?  Stefan's record is _very_ different.

As I made it abundantly clear, I disagree.

> > Moreover, Alan himself made such a mistake when he installed his
> > cc-mode.el change back in May, the change which led to bug#74339, and
> > eventually to this sad result (because Alan staunchly opposed to
> > modifying his change from back then, even though the modifications
> > proposed to him would not affect the effect of his change in any way).
> 
> My mistake was more political than technical.  Had I been more forthright
> in exposing the problem in May, I still doubt anything would have been
> done about it, precisely because the commit causing it was made by "a
> leading contributor".  That is an expectation I wouldn't have had two
> days ago.

If you had explained what you are about to do, I would have objected
right there and then.  Instead, I was surprised to discover this the
hard way when I installed the 2nd pretest of Emacs 30 (I have no idea
how I missed that with the first pretest).

> > So there's nothing here that requires any "reigning in", just the
> > normal practice of Emacs development, which hasn't changed in decades,
> > because we think it fits well the way this community is structured,
> > and the nature and the vast span of expertise needed to develop and
> > maintain Emacs.
> 
> I have regrettably resigned from Emacs, precisely because of this "normal
> practice of Emacs development".

And I regret your decision very much.  I think and hope our common
goal of developing Emacs should allow us to cooperate even with people
with whom we occasionally disagree, even when the disagreements are
radical.