Re: GTK+ maintenance

[Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org>]

Hi Tristan,

Le mercredi 16 mai 2007, à 10:13 -0400, Tristan Van Berkom a écrit :
> I dont want to start a shouting match so lets try our best not to
> restate the obvious...
> 
> I have these points I think should be taken into consideration:
> 
>  - If a company were to devote a hacker to gtk+;
>     o would that hacker be a key player on that companies's dev team ?
>     o that hacker would nevertheless need to be chaperoned by
>       someone experienced
>     o would that company possibly decide at a later point that
>       they need that developer back for some other project ?
>       (and then where did that chaperone time go ?)
> 
>  - If the foundation were to hire a hacker for the GNOME core
>    platform libraries:
>     o that hacker would have his/her interests strictly/exactly 
>       where we as a community need them to be
>     o that hacker would probably be a more suitable candidate
>       to be a core maintainer, companies in general are great for
>       contributing code as it helps the interests of all - core
>       maintainers OTOH need to protect the interests of the product 
>       as a whole from the aggressive impact of incomming
>       patches/contributions (sometimes the codebase really suffers
>       from hasty addition of features).
> 
>  - Imendio is really a special case from what I understand, its a
>    company based on offering developmental services with expertise
>    on GNOME software - they have an obvious interest in supporting
>    GNOME - and its also probably safe to say that they are in for
>    the long haul.
> 
> I'm trying to recognize GNOME as having its own identity and not
> just being a pile of FOSS software developed at the whim of alot
> of corporate giants, I realize that hiring a developer(s) from the
> board directly would have a huge impact and I'm sure I havent considered
> all the possible impacts it could have, it would definitly be an
> aggressive step for GNOME/FOSS to take in this competitive age.
> 
> I just implore that the board please take these points into
> consideration.

I'm not exactly sure what you want the board to consider. The plan is
not "let companies develop GTK+ and hope everything will go well", but
"tell companies that if they want a better GTK+, this is what they
should do".

Maybe your point is that we shouldn't just dismiss the "Foundation
should hire someone" option. The board is exploring various ways to help
the GTK+ developer community, and we're not rejecting this option. It is
still on the list, but, as it was already pointed out, it comes with
some issues.

Also note that it's not clear to me if most GTK+ developers want the
Foundation to hire someone or not.

Vincent

-- 
Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés.