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Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2016 12:46:12 +0200
From: Gilles <gilles@harfang.homelinux.org>
To: <dev@commons.apache.org>
Subject: Re: [MATH]: Current state of =?UTF-8?Q?project=3F?=
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On Tue, 2 Aug 2016 23:59:23 -0700, Ralph Goers wrote:
>> On Aug 2, 2016, at 4:00 PM, Gilles <gilles@harfang.homelinux.org> 
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Most PMC members seem to wish that CM becomes dormant.
>> I totally agree with you that it would be good to have _that_
>> clarified.
>
> I have no idea how that is your takeaway from all the discussions.
> The point I have tried to make is that CM needs a community of
> committers, not just you.

The current situation is that there is only me (with commit
privilege).
Without me, all development activity would have stopped more than
8 months ago.  [That's an observational fact.]

There are volunteers for following up on my proposals but, indeed,
their statements seem to count for nothing.

Isn't it awkward that people like Rob Tompkins, formerly interested
in contributing to CM feels compelled to find "something else" to do
here in order to get noticed, and perhaps later (or perhaps never)
get the authorization to do what he really intended to in the first
place?

If this PMC intended to discourage contributors, that would be a
nice way.

> My position has always been that having
> discussions about what to do with the code is a waste of time when 
> you
> are the only committer doing anything.

IMHO, you get things upside down (as did the CM team all along):
people come to contribute because they are interested in the code
(be it to add to it, up to completely overhaul it, from time to
time).
Where the project is heading to is a fundamental aspect for
deciding whether one wants to contribute.

As an example, Artem Barger is interested in improving the
"machine-learning" package.
As it happens, I'm also interested in that part of CM.  Why
should we have to carry the burden of the pack of codes left
behind by the forkers and _literally_ waste our time maintaining
something that either we don't use or needs thorough refactoring?

The extracting of modules would make it clear to users and
would-be contributors what is currently being worked on and what
is in need of maintainers.

But the Commons PMC does indeed "prefers" a monolithic and
_dormant_ CM.

> Moving Math to the incubator
> would have allowed you to have a much lower barrier to add new
> committers, but you didn’t really want to discuss doing that.

This is plain false.

Incubator PMC people said that it was one-of-a-kind situation,
noting that the incubator's usual task was to create an Apache
project around an existing community, not to discuss how to
create one.

There was James Carman's proposal to create a TLP, but the PMC
did not want to approve of that, for reasons so unclear that it
led to James' resignation.

> So here
> we are.

Yes, because you and others seem to abstract from the current
reality, hoping that in some indeterminate future a bunch of
people will come and say: "Hey, where is that CM?  Let's have
fun with Java 5!".

The more time passes waiting for this unlikely future, the more
unlikely it becomes.

Even if you think that I'm wrong headed, I'd dare to say that
_anything_ is better than let this code rot.
Better to try and revive parts of it, even if it is impossible
to ensure success of these offsprings.
At any rate, nothing can be worse than what "happened" a few
months ago.
Counting how many "components" have been discontinued, I have
a hard time understanding the reluctance of this committee to
give a chance to a few others!


Gilles

>
> Ralph
>


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