-- En reponse de "[Dillo-dev] worried about dillo (cathedral and bazaar)" de linux seaq, le 26-Jan-2004 : ...
I recently re-read the cathedral and bazar paper, and thought to my self that dillo was heading in another direction. It seems to me that there's no intention to receive help from others, or get into account other's contributions. I believed that the main force behind a project weren't its main developers but its users and contributors. That mix made projects grow and grow. And dillo rejected that "magical" force.
I'm just writing these thoughts, because as i said, i'm worried about dillo. ...
I wanted to react to that now the dust has settled. Dillo is back to normal. Even an (arguably) small project like Dillo takes a lot of time and energy to maintain, to develop and to get right. A few months ago a few individual started submitting patches against the advices of the core developers. The features were sometimes interesting, sometimes not. The code style did not integrate well the rest of Dillo's code. (not to mention the form in which the patches were presented). The maintainers of Dillo decided these contributions were not good for Dillo, for many reasons. While you might disagree, similar decisions were made during the development of Dillo, and the result is the great browser we have now. We have the focus and we have a plan. Of course Dillo is not finished, and your contributions are still welcome. Countless contributions have been made since dillo was started, and the mailing list has always been courteous and people helpful. Dillo is that good now not only thanks to the core developers, but also to many contributors helping with the spirit of being part of a group. Not to take control to see the one feature they like be included. I understand how a Linus Torvald saying no to a patch for Linux might induce more respect to young coders than for a smaller project like Dillo. But you should learn to repect Jorge, Sebatian, Livio, and the others contributors (and not only the so-called "core developer"). These people put a lot of their energy and sweat into Dillo over the years, because that's what it takes to make a successful project. Dillo is an Open Source project, and anybody whom's not happy with the development policy could start his own project with it. And he'll be welcome. But nobody did so far, and I take it as a confirmation that one needs more than being vocal in mailing list to maintain a project like Dillo. It takes dedication and talent. "The main job of a maintainer is to say No", said Linus Torvald. That's what happened. Nothing more: people were not happy to see their patch rejected and they tried to push back. Dillo's still active, and not less than it was before: do not confuse bubbling in the mailing list with activity. Out-of-control patch submissions is not equivalent to improvement. The people who made Dillo are still there, and new contributors are joining. Those whom wanted their features included so badly prefered to leave rather than change their attitude and work the issues. I guess we're back to normal: a sane and nice working environment. Please keep contributing. Best, Eric PS: even if you're not a coder you can contribute, by doing bug reports for instance.