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: What a modern collaboration toolkit looks like Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:41:08 -0500 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Message-ID: <20071231214108.GD26639@thyrsus.com> References: <20071230122217.3CA84830B9A@snark.thyrsus.com> <20071231130712.GB8641@thyrsus.com> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1199137293 23076 80.91.229.12 (31 Dec 2007 21:41:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:41:33 +0000 (UTC) Cc: esr@snark.thyrsus.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Dec 31 22:41:46 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1J9SOI-0004FI-4P for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 22:41:46 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1J9SNw-0005Ed-BA for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:41:24 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1J9SNs-0005EO-Pi for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:41:20 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1J9SNr-0005DH-Ad for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:41:20 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1J9SNr-0005D6-8L for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:41:19 -0500 Original-Received: from static-71-162-243-5.phlapa.fios.verizon.net ([71.162.243.5] helo=golux.thyrsus.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1J9SNn-0003R0-Fg; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:41:15 -0500 Original-Received: by golux.thyrsus.com (Postfix, from userid 23) id ED866CF80C1; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:41:08 -0500 (EST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.15+20070412 (2007-04-11) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:85764 Archived-At: Eli Zaretskii : > And if you are hinting that using CVS is the reason, Not exactly. I think CVS in itself is *a* reason people sheer away from the project -- selecting themselves out before you even notice they're doing that -- but I think CVS is more important as a major symptom and part-cause of the largest problem this project has. That largest problem? Boy howdy, did I get a faceful of it last night at my friends the Matuszeks' post-Yule party. They're AI researchers and their parties attract a rather dizzying assortment of alpha geeks, considering we're in Pennsylvania. People fly in to be at their annual bash. I proudly mentioned my work on VC-mode, and got majorly dumped on for bothering with Emacs at all. The kids out there think we're a stagnant backwater, an old-boys club of bearded grognards that has learned nothing and forgotten nothing for the last decade. I'll also say I wasn't all that surprised at this reaction. I've seen this image problem building for a while; it's just that before I rejoined the dev team I had little incentive to address it. > > The Emacs project, though, is still operating at a scale and tempo I > > think of as being typical of the late 1980s and early 1990s. I think > > we are limited by poor tools, and by habits of thought derived from > > those poor tools. > > My analysis is different: I think we are limited by a small number of > core developers, and by the lack of head maintainer(s) who could > devote much more time than any of us can evidently provide to coding > and leading the rest of the developers. I don't disagree with you that either is a serious problem. But I see all three issues (few developers, weak leadership, crappy tools) as all causally linked and feeding into each other. In particular, crappy tools and weak leadership hinder attracting new developers. I can't solve the weak leadership problem, so I'm focusing on what I know how to do: fix the tools. -- Eric S. Raymond