2009/6/29 Bernhard Pieber bernhard@pieber.com:
Am 28.06.2009 um 23:09 schrieb Igor Stasenko
Note, that I am not saying that the kitchen sink image could or should not be put together from a small image and nicely modularized packages. What I am saying is that if you clean up only the base image you will never be able to put together the full image because I guess many of the maintainers will not bother to repair stuff others broke. Worse yet, they probably will not bother anymore to create more cool stuff. See, I can follow your reasoning. And it sounds very convincing. Therefore, I am not blaming anyone for going that route. I am totally sure everyone had only the best intentions. Nevertheless I am totally convinced it was a really bad idea and it still is, because that way you lose contributions and contributors.
I will answer on this separately. Obviously people stop contributing because of failure of communication/development model. Iff we would have a separate modules, communicating with each other on well defined protocols, then none of the above problems, which you listed is taking place, or more correct to say - they are moving into a different plane. People will communicate with each other, and if someone will change the interfaces towards improving the overall design, then i don't see the reasons why others who using it, will stop doing own stuff and run away.
An opposite, when everyone depends on a single, alma-mater image , any radical changes in it will lead to major break down in multiple projects/development areas. Because everyone depends on a single entity - bloated image, instead of being dependant on a much smaller, flexible, vibrant & easily adoptable modules.
You can yell on a list: who is maintainer of kernel? who is maintainer of morphic? who is maintainer of squeak? None. It is impossible to maintain such a big code base by a single person. We need to split responsibilities, establish a new development/communication model. Only then you can get the answers in a minutes, whether your package will work with X.Y.Z image/module or not, and what you need to make it working.
Cheers, Bernhard
-- Best regards, Igor Stasenko AKA sig.