Hello Thomas,
as a preamble, let me say that I appreciate the directness of
your
message and the civil tone of this conversation. I understand
there
are frustrations lingering around, I have my own too, so let's
keep
this thread as constructive as possible, because we all deserve
it
as a community.
Let me separate two questions: one is my attitude in dealing
with this
migration; another one is my general ability as a maintainer.
The first question naturally leads to the other one, but the
last one
exists per se and I'll take this opportunity to say a few words.
So, about this manual migration.
Here is a quick timeline:
In 2013, I said it was a nice experiment.
In 2014, I said I would be "more than happy" if you and others
could
progress on this:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/85574
In 2016, Charles quoted me saying: "Where Bastien says: "the
day we
can export org.org to org.texi with very little headache and
ad hoc
configuration, yes, we will make the move.""
In January 2018, I said: "Having the manual in .org is a great
achievement, congrats to anyone who worked on this titanic
task!
I'm all for editing manual.org instead of org.texi in the long
run."
In March 2018, I said there was no blocker, "please move
ahead".
So I don't think I have been scolding you or anyone working on
this,
quite on the contrary. In my message from 2014, I said I won't
have
time to dedicate to the project. And while I was kind of
skeptical
about the idea, I have been consistent in sending encouragements
and
in not blocking it.
Maybe I should have explained why I was skeptical: but in
2013-2015,
it was just a gut feeling, and expressing it would probably have
been
unproductive; then when I had this project to develop Org from
within
Emacs, I was not so sure about it either, so I was first
cautious not
to raise premature objections.
When Nicolas sollicited the list again in january, I tried to
make a
few inputs: not as constructive as I'd wish they were, but
still.
Now, my main input is this: LET'S GO!
So... I completely recognize my general lack of responsiveness
is a
problem and it may have been a problem in this case, but I hope
you
see that I carefully tried not to block anyone's work on this.
Again:
asking inputs from emacs-devel@ is not a way of delaying or
blocking,
it is just something normal to do considering the move.
So now let's close this issue, I'll write to emacs-devel@ and we
will
make the switch.
Now, about my general experience and attitude as a maintainer.
I started to take care of Org-mode in 2011, on January 1st.
Seven years ago... time flies :)
I've been involved in code and communication on the list on a
daily
basis until septembre 2012, the day my daughter was born. Stats
may
prove my memory is wrong here, but I think I stayed closely
committed
until septembre 2014. Enters life: I had a burn out, a break up
and
I was broke. Like in: completely broke, no job, no place to
stay.
I asked Nicolas whether he would considered to be the maintainer
on
several occasions -- the first one dating back to november 2011.
We
always had a frank conversation about this. Nicolas declined,
but we
managed to find a balanced way of collaborating and I
confidently
moved from being proactive to being more of a release manager.
Despite not being the "official" maintainer, Nicolas is the de
facto
one since 2015. And again, I cannot express how much I owe to
Nicolas
and his consistency for the last three years.
But believe me: I wish I could continue to spend one or two
hours per
day coding and communicating on the mailing list: because, it's
kind
of a home for me. But I could not. And I cannot.
So here is my plan:
- We make the switch to using manual.org.
- We release Org 9.2.
- I extract the contrib/ directory from org-mode.git into a
separate
org-contrib.git to live on code.orgmode.org (something I've
wanted
for long).
- I go down my org-mode TODO list to see if there are importants
bugs
and features I wish to work on.
- In the meantime, I find a new maintainer.
- We release Org 10 and the new maintainer takes on.
I think the whole process can take from 2 to 3 months, and I'm
ready
to dedicate more time to Org during these months.
WDYT?