Re: Carbon port and multi-tty

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
> Date: Wed, 07 May 2008 10:42:15 +0200
> Cc: Chong Yidong <cyd@stupidchicken.com>, Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu>,
> 	Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>,
> 	YAMAMOTO Mitsuharu <mituharu@math.s.chiba-u.ac.jp>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> I have to say that people who
> _whine_ about other developers' work to support _their_ platform are not
> on my list of favorites.  Large amounts of work for some programs go
> into supporting things like compatibility with Windows or XEmacs or
> similar where the developers themselves are not actually using the
> platform in question.
> 
> Things like that often prove to be a time sink.  And being beraved for
> good-faith efforts that would not have happened otherwise doesn't make
> that more pleasant.
> 
> I can't really blame developers who decide to cut their losses in such a
> situation, even though I find it sad.
> 
> Fortunately, with Emacs we have "native" developers for most platforms.
> It appears that we don't have any with Carbon.  So it might make sense
> for Carbon developers not willing to invest any time of theirselves to
> remain constructive and polite, even more so than with platforms for
> which active developers have a vested interest.

Politeness is a two-way street.  If you are being impolite to others
(e.g., by saying that supporting their platforms is a ``time sink''
for you), don't expect too much politeness in response.

Being more active then others gives one credit for one's contribution,
but it doesn't make one less responsible for the consequences of one's
contributions.  In fact, IMO it makes one _more_ responsible, since if
you are more active, you have more resources to make sure your work's
quality.

On a more broad scale, what good is Free Software with its underlying
social agenda, if all we do is care about our own platforms, and ``cut
our losses'' about all the rest?