Re: New maintainer

[phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk (Phillip Lord)]

John Wiegley <johnw@newartisans.com> writes:

>>>>>> Phillip Lord <phillip.lord@russet.org.uk> writes:
>
>> I mention this not to stir up old arguments, but simply to point out that
>> these arguments have not been resolved in the past. While I am hopeful that
>> they will be resolved in the future, I suspect that trying to sort this
>> issue out now is a side-track, which should not block discussion of the
>> maintainership.
>
> I realize we're on the 1000th round of this discussion, but I've not been
> directly involved in it before, and it has a direct bearing on my willingness
> to maintain Emacs.
>
> Guiding a project's technical future requires devotion and enthusiasm, and a
> certain degree of freedom. If the directions I want to take Emacs in are going
> to be consistently hampered by the "needs of freedom", this will cause me to
> lose all such energy.

Yes, that is a possibility indeed. To be honest, though, I think the
"consistently hampered" concerns is misplaced. In fact, the GCC argument
came about because of (Richard's) interpretation of the needs of freedom
wrt GCC, rather than Emacs per se.

From my own perspective, as a very long term Emacs user, the issue
doesn't impact me directly because I don't write very much C or use
either GCC or clang (as dev tools -- obviously I build with them).

My own take on the issue, though, is that worrying now about what *may*
cause you to lose energy in the future is self-defeating. I hope that
you take up the role, I think that you will bring energy to it, and I
hope that you find it to be a rewarding and valuable experience.


> I'm going be the one at conferences, talking to users, saying, "Yes, we know;
> yes, it's a great idea; yes, it should be there; yes, I even want to do it
> myself, yesterday; but talk to me in ten years when GCC has gotten around to
> providing what we need."
>
> I'm beginning to think GNU Emacs will need someone who also cares about the
> freedom argument first, and the technical needs second, because I'm very much
> concerned I would chomping at the bit to move forward, and unable to for
> reasons I don't necessarily agree with.

I don't think that this is the case. It's just the case that the moral
discussions raise more noise than the technical ones, simply because
more people know about something about them.

For instance, while this (long) thread has been happening, Stefan has
been his useful helpful self in helping me with a small change to the
undo system. In total, that's resulted in maybe 10 emails over a month,
compared to the 10 emails an hour on the ethics of exposing GCC/clang
ASTs. The evolution of Emacs is affected as much, I think, by
combination of these small changes as anything.

In short, I wouldn't judge the needs of Emacs by the volume of email.
And, in an attempt to not add to that volume, I shall say no more on
this thread, other than to wish any future maintainer(s) luck whoever
they may be.

Phil