Re: [Groff] Overview, Sept. 2014

[Peter Schaffter]

Ingo --

On Wed, Sep 10, 2014, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
> > One of the issues he raised with me off-list is an apparent lack
> > of organization.  It's true.
> 
> I disagree.  Lack of reviewable patches is not lack of organization.
> If you have reviewable patches and people go for each other's throat
> instead of testing the patches and providing OKs or specific
> suggestions for improvement, that might be called lack of
> organization.  But that's not at all what we have.

Key word: "apparent".  I meant to convey that the situation
might be perceived as lacking organization, not that it does.
A suit, for example, would see it that way.  He'd be wrong, of
course.
 
> > Vaibhaw suggested that a list of major work that is ongoing in
> > groff would be helpful, too, with some sort of ETA.
> > I'm not sure such a list is even possible (esp. the ETAs),
> > but it's a reasonable thing for any maintainer to want,
> 
> That's not what a maintainer of a free software project would ask
> of his fellow developers.  That's not even what a team leader would
> ask of his workforce in a sweatshop.  It's what a Senior Vice
> President of Technology would ask of his Managing Directors in a
> corporation.  Not sure such a thing is that helpful with a handful
> of part-time free software nerds.  ;-)
> 
> In my experience, ETAs fail more often than not, even in a commercial
> setting where everybody works full time, where that pesky thing
> called real life doesn't intervene except when people fall ill, and
> where even that is smoothened out by the law of large numbers.

Total agreement, hence the parenthetical comment about ETAs. :) I
presented the matter as it was presented to me; it doesn't reflect
my personal opinion.

I do like the idea of having a list of who's doing what, etc,
though.  It's not essential--anybody can enquire about anything on
the list and somebody always pops up with an answer--but it would be
nice to have, if only to form a cognitive map of the groff terrain,
so to speak.  Plus, one does sometimes want to contact the expert
in a particular area off list, or the person actively working on a
specific part of groff.  In the latter case, one could, I suppose,
use git tools to extrapolate who's working on what, but a simple
list is more convenient.
 
Anyway, if others agree, they'll supply what's needed, as you did.
Otherwise, it's an idea that didn't take.  I don't think there's
much need for discussion.  It's a trivial matter.

-- 
Peter Schaffter
http://www.schaffter.ca