Re: critical issues

[David Kastrup]

"Phil Holmes" <address@hidden> writes:

> From: "David Kastrup" <address@hidden>
> To: <address@hidden>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 11:44 AM
> Subject: Re: critical issues
>
>> "Phil Holmes" <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> From: "David Kastrup" <address@hidden>
>>> To: <address@hidden>
>>>
>>>> There is a _reason_ the remaining OSX and Windows based developers
>>>> are doing (definitely important) documentation and web site work.
>>>> They are to a large degree locked out and dependent on support from
>>>> surplus GNU/Linux-based developer capacities.  We are not doing them
>>>> any favors by killing LilyPond development as a whole out of sympathy
>>>> with their plight.
>>>
>>> Not at all.  I think you know that myself and James are mainly Windows
>>> users.  We also run big Ubuntu machines that support the build
>>> environment. However, we came to the development from being Windows
>>> users.  Cut off that supply and I'll probably stop supporting Lily,
>>> which I would regret.
>>
>> You are compiling your own binaries without using GNU/Linux in the
>> process?
>>
>> That's what a native development environment would look like.
>
> No.  I have an Ubuntu VM which I use for quick experiments and a very
> fast Ubuntu PC which I use for full builds.  But I support lilypond
> because I _use_ it for typesetting music on a _Windows_ machine. Take
> away that ability to use it, and the sesire to support goes away.

Yup, and our current effective strategy of not doing stable releases
takes away that ability from anyone.  Not just Windows users.

>> It is nice that things are not as completely broken as I thought.
>> But I still think that our effectively current philosophy of "the
>> next stable release is something only developers interested in
>> Windows and OSX need to concern themselves with" is doing anybody a
>> favor.  Our road map has nothing to offer beyond GUB, and so there is
>> little interest in getting even there.
>
> I think you've mis-stated the philosophy.  It's "the next stable
> release is something that will benefit users of many operating
> systems, including many flavours of Unix, plus windows and MAC".

That's the vision.  The vision can't replace the road leading to it.
The only roadmap we have is "critical issues", and none of the critical
issues are anything that could be tackled by anybody rather than
developers with quite special skills and interests.  If all of the
critical issues go away over night for some reason, we still have
nothing that can in good conscience be sold as "stable release".  And by
the time we get there, GUB will probably have acquired enough fresh bit
rot that we will be in the same situation as we are now.

If we refuse thinking about stable releases by taking GUB as an excuse,
the grand next stable release that will benefit users of many operating
systems is likely to fall in the class "too little, too late".

-- 
David Kastrup