Re: [Gnu-arch-users] bitkeeper or arch and group culture

[Sri Ramkrishna]

John,

Like you, I too want to use Arch in a business like settings and I
understand where you're coming from.  However, like a lot of open source
project that start becoming popular and moves towards critical mass
there is a lot of flux and issues that come out in the open.  Whether
thats control issues or personality conflicts whatever.  It'll either
make or break the project.  But as long as the project members are
willing to compromise and work things out and recognize that in order to
take the project forward things will have to change.

GNOME had a similar situation several years ago.  Massive amounts of
flammage, paranoia whatever that would come up.  But eventually things
settle down and GNOME works beautifully with timed releases.  Morever,
at least we don't have the inconvenience of having your dirty laundry
aired in slashdot like we did. :-)

Essentially, I'm saying don't be put off by the flammage it's a normal
process of a project.  It happens in companies too but hidden.  At least
you can appreciate the openness of the theater we have here. :-)

sri

On Fri, 2004-09-24 at 10:28 -0400, John S. Yates, Jr. wrote:
> I work for a company that has important roots in the
> open/free software world.  We are experiencing much
> pain around CVS and looking for a replacement.  (As
> such we are probably similar to many companies.)  The
> main source of our frustration with CVS comes down to
> needing to support parallel development of multiple
> features.
> 
> After some research I had narrowed my list of candidate
> replacement tools to bitkeeper and arch.  As I said in
> my opening, we have roots in the open/free software
> community.  Our basic impulse it to continue to support
> that community.  Thus I had been talking up arch to my
> peers.  I had used the amount of traffic in this news
> group as evidence of the good health of the project.
> 
> Thus it is with significant disappointment that I
> observe the latest development.  In fairness to our
> investors I no longer feel that I can honestly continue
> to advocate for arch.  For that I feel sad.
> 
> Tom, I feel for you.  I hope that you will give some
> thought to some of the factors that have made Linus'
> kernel such a paradigmatic project.  Two that I can
> see are
> 
> 1) though Linus has to deal with his share of jerks
>    he is eternally the gentleman
> 
> 2) Linus is secure enough in his sense of being the
>    project's guiding spirit as to be able to delegate
>    true elements of authority
> 
> As I write it occurs to me that Linus is not unique
> in this regard.  Guido seems to occupy a similar space
> in the Python world.  I am sure that with reflection
> I could come up with a few more examples.
> 
> I do want to see arch succeed.  I hope that the social
> issues will be worked out quickly.  I will continue to
> monitor the news group.
> 
> Best of luck,
> 
> /john
> --
> John S. Yates, Jr.   508 665-6897 (voice)
> Netezza Inc          508 665-6811 (fax)
> 200 Crossing Blvd.   Framingham, MA 01701
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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