Re: [PATCH] Xft patch reloaded, #3

>>>>> "Eric" == Eric Knauel <[email protected]> writes:

    Eric> Matthias posted some detailed questions[1] about the
    Eric> discussed issues some days ago --- I wonder if that message
    Eric> is a victim of "japanese MIT" mail desaster.  However, it
    Eric> would be really helpful if someone could answer that
    Eric> questions!

Sure.  So get to work, and start answering them.

Let's get something understood here.  You guys have been offered
XEmacs resources (a branch in the CVS repository and the mailing
lists) to publish your work.  You want to turn it down, because
branches are inconvenient for you.

Well, people who put in code and then disappear are inconvenient for
_me_.  Look in the archives: you'll see that for the last three years
I've been handling administrative stuff, putting out releases, and
even fixing a few bugs, week in, week out.  I bet you can't name one
"feature" I've contributed.  But over that time, Bill P put in GTK and
Qt.  Jan Vroonhof put in Custom themes.  Matt Tucker, syntax
properties.  Andy Piper assorted GUI features.  Ben Wing too long to
list.  Galibert, Buchholz and Jones the portable dumper.  I've fixed
bugs in all of them, with very little documentation to go on.  Some of
them are just bitrotting.

These guys are all pretty dedicated to XEmacs, they're all good
programmers, and all of their features are still incomplete to one
degree or another.  I see no reason to expect you guys to be any
different.  Mike says "[you'll] be around to fix problems."
Matthias's "answers" to my questions makes me doubt that very much.

I like the Xft patch.  I use it myself.  But I don't see justification
for imposing maintenance burden on the rest of the community until
some of _my_ questions are answered.  So far, Matthias's answers are
"that's not our job."  And my response to that is: maintaining your
code isn't anybody else's.  Make it perfect, and then you can put it
in.

Or you can accept the burden of doing stuff that you don't really want
to do, so that the costs to other developers of your contribution
won't exceed its value.  Take a look at the questions I asked, answer
a few of them _with designs and code_, and I'll be your strongest
supporter.  You don't need to fix them _all_.  But at the moment,
AFAICT your position is you don't want to do any of it.  Right?


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