Re: Release process (was Re: DarwinPorts 1.3.1)

On Aug 3, 2006, at 9:50 PM, Tabitha McNerney wrote:

> Apologies Paul if I went a bit overboard, but it kind of bothers me  
> to see those comments about Darwin Ports possibly being merely an  
> intellectual curiosity and I don't want to see it die, nor do I want  
> to see Apple employees who make a good income living in the vicinity  
> of Cupertino, California United States of America acting as if the  
> the onus for infrastructure improvements to Darwin Ports is mostly  
> on the open source community members who are volunteering their time.

I think you may be jumping to conclusions without a lot of evidence or  
even an adequate grasp of history here, Tabitha.  A lot of people,  
myself included, have volunteered time and resources to DarwinPorts  
and done far more than simply chatter in the mailing lists.  A very  
significant amount of the engineering work for DarwinPorts (including  
the initial design and implementation) was done by my group at Apple,  
in fact, and subsequently donated to the community.  Without the work  
of those "living in the vicinity of Cupertino", I think it's fair to  
say that DarwinPorts would not even exist.

Once the work was under the umbrella of OpenDarwin (which, for better  
or for worse, Apple also endowed with hardware and helped start), both  
current and even ex-Apple employees continued to put spare time and  
effort into DarwinPorts, not because it brought in any income or  
factored into their performance reviews in any way but because they  
wanted it to succeed and, more importantly, they wanted the user  
community to have easier access to all the great software that  
projects like DarwinPorts and Fink provide.

I won't even go into all the rest of your post which goes into great  
detail concerning Apple's recent stock option investigation.  I don't  
see what relevance this has to DarwinPorts at all or to the topic  
being discussed, namely what DP has to do in order to survive as a  
relevant, vibrant project that delivers maximum value to its USERS,  
not to Apple (I don't believe anyone has even mentioned Apple once  
when discussing technical goals and deficiencies).   Sure, you can  
attempt to tie the two together if it makes you happey, but we're not  
here to talk politics, we're here to discuss engineering principles  
and practices as they relate to the DarwinPorts project.

Perhaps some of the engineering discussion is a little too blunt for  
you and causes you to read all sorts of hidden agendas into what is  
said, but that's just how engineers talk.  We see something that  
really needs addressing and we go "THIS SUCKS AND IS BROKEN", we don't  
bother to sugar-coat the problem or get so mired in political  
correctness that we spend more time trying to figure out how to word  
something than on how to properly describe the problem.   When I say  
things like "DarwinPorts will be nothing more than an intellectual  
curiosity if X, Y and Z doesn't happen", I say that because I'm trying  
to argue the perspective of a USER who wants easy access to thousands  
of optional software packages and isn't getting them from DarwinPorts.

As far as the onus is concerned, DarwinPorts IS an open source project  
and has been fully in control of its own destiny since Apple  
transitioned it from being an internal engineering project to being an  
OpenDarwin project.   You can't have it both ways.  Either you're  
living in your mom's basement, completely subject to her rules, or  
you're living on your own and responsible for paying your own rent.    
Sure, you might occasionally hit mom up for a few bucks (or, in  
OpenDarwin terms, "Hey, we need more hardware!") but either you're  
independent or you're not.   DarwinPorts is independent and, I am  
quite sure, wants to stay that way.  With freedom also comes the onus.

I will continue to donate what time and effort I can to making the  
things I'd personally like to see happen, happen.  If you feel  
strongly about DP's direction, you're welcome to volunteer too.   
Ultimately, that's the only currency that counts for anything.

- Jordan