Mail Archives: geda-user/2015/07/09/13:27:24
On Thu, 9 Jul 2015, Britton Kerin (britton DOT kerin AT gmail DOT com) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com] wrote:
>>
>> My specific answer in case of PCB:
>>
>> - DVCS kills point 1. and 3. for me. It often kills 4. too, but in case of
>> PCB I couldn't ever see a clear roadmap since I started to use it in the mid
>> 2000s.
>
> You should really try again on DVCS. Its just totally better and the world
> isn't going back, don't shut yourself out of having fun on 90% of new software.
You automatically assume DVCS is the future and centralized VCS is
the past, and anything newer must be better, so it must be more fun for
me. I do have a long list of _technical_ arguments why I prefer
centralized VCS, but honestly, I don't want to waste my time if you
already have such an image about DVCS.
>> - In practice this means random people are working in random branches on
>
> This is certainly true of gEDA but not because of DVCS.
Your view. Mine is switching from DVCS to a centralized one would be the
first step to clean up the mess. We probably won't ever agree on this, and
I accept this; and do you?
<snip>
>> clean up the infrastructure of PCB here a bit" recursion (this happens a lot
>> with me in my own projects too!). All in all, I consider both occasions
>> total waste of my time which made it easy to move on to other projects.
>
> The people in charge of the official repo, such as it is, don't really like
> dealing with some types of contributions. This is apparently a widespread
> feeling, but until we get someone who wants to take charge of a more aggressive
> repo nothing will change.
On this one we agree. I go one step further and claim that it's not only
about a person (or group of persons) who can integrate all the random
changes from random branches, but this person (or group) should also have
a clear, explicit, communicated vision on where they want the project to
go.
>> version of PCB that I choose was mature enough.
>
> This is the death spiral gEDA is stuck in. Main line development is so slow
> that (essentially) private forks are more attractive, which in turn slows
> development more, etc.
For me, this is the vitality spiral of gEDA. If I didn't make
that PCB fork, I may have switched to kicad or whatever else, or if not, I
would surely be considering that move by now.
I admit I am selfish, but having a PCB version that does what I want is
more important than trying to push a version that's only getting farther
and farther away from my needs. Since in either case I wouldn't
contribute and wouldn't keep using the software long term, I don't even
see how this makes any difference or induces a death spiral.
So what's the deal here? Either everyone joins forces to work on something
suboptimal, and then it's all great and joy, or people work on their own
and the "project dies" and the universe disintegrates? So why don't we
have One Good Operating System already? I see things differently, having
forks is better than having nothing, and, it may make the project live
longer.
Regards,
Igor2
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