Re: The future of Octave

[John W. Eaton]

On  8-Dec-2000, Andrew Bainbridge-Smith <address@hidden> wrote:

| One of the key functions of the maintainers is to foster an
| inclusive framework to the entire OCTAVE community, so as to
| minimise forking of development.  This inclusiveness need not mean a
| less "clean" code base, as every possible feature is added.
| Inclusiveness is achieved by open and clear communications --- which
| probably means good documentation like a maintained TODO and FAQ
| lists etc.

We have had open access to the latest development sources for a while,
and open mailing lists for all the discussion anyone could handle.
I agree that communication is good, but it is no substitute for
contributions of good quality code and documentation.

I have done the best I could to maintain the Projects file and the
FAQ.  I have put out numerous requests for someone else to take over
maintaining the FAQ (which I think would be best handled by a real
live editor, not just by having random people add things via some web
interface), but so far no one has taken me up on the offer.

As I said in another message, I have been conservative about accepting
patches.  We can debate whether this was good or bad, but I believe
that it was in the best interest of the quality and stability of
Octave.

jwe



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